Title

Description

In this interview, Judy Holmes discusses her work with the Archdiocese of Detroit and her impressions of Cardinal Dearden.

Publisher

Detroit Historical Society

Date

09/28/2018

Rights

Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI

Format

Audio/WAV

Language

en-US

Type

Oral History

Narrator/Interviewee's Name

Judy Holmes

Brief Biography

Judy Holmes grew up in Warren, Michigan, and studied at Wayne State University’s Monteith College. In 1967 she worked for the Archdiocese of Detroit.

Interviewer's Name

Edras Rodriguez-Torres

Interview Place

Detroit, MI

Date

07/20/2017

Interview Length

00:38:48

Transcriptionist

Julie Vandenboom

Transcription Date

02/05/2018

Transcription

ERT: Hello. Today is July 20, 2017. My name is Edras Rodriguez Torres, and I am at the Detroit Historical Society in Detroit, Michigan conducting an interview for the Detroit '67 Oral History Project and I am sitting down with -

JH: Judy Holmes.

ERT: Thank you for coming in today.

JH: You're welcome.

ERT: Let's begin with when and where you were born.

JH: Okay. October 14, 1945, in Royal Oak, Michigan.

ERT: In Royal Oak? Did you grow up in Royal Oak?

JH: No. No, that was just where the hospital was. I grew up in Warren, for the most part, until about '69, '70. Moved to Hamtramck when I was working for the Archdiocese of Detroit and then after that moved back to Warren, then moved to Oakland County for a while then moved back to Macomb County. So, you know - just basically lived in all three counties.

ERT: And what recollections do you have of growing up? In Warren.

JH: A very simple, quiet, peaceful, you know, childhood, because in those days you didn't have to lock your doors. You could leave your bikes outside. When we would come home from school the doors would be open. So it was that - you know, a simple time, I would say.

ERT: What was the makeup of Warren at that time?

JH: Working class people, for the most part, blue collar.

ERT: Was it integrated at that time?

JH: No, I don't think so. Many different ethnic groups - but not very many racial groups that I was aware of. But a lot of different ethnic groups.

ERT: And that's where you had the majority of your schooling?

JH: Mm hm. Yeah. Went to Centerline High School - Centerline Schools - even though I lived in Warren, Centerline was a small community within Warren. Kind of like Hamtramck is within Detroit.

ERT: And what was that schooling like?

JH: Excellent. I had great teachers, you know, good espirt d'corps among our classmates, and I was a class officer, and active in band. It was - different activities, so, it was very nice. We did not have a big drug problem that I was aware of, so just - down to earth people. Not affluent. You know, very middle class. Low to middle class.

ERT: And did you have any siblings?

JH: Mm hm. One older sister and one older brother, and we all went to the same schools.

ERT: And what did your parents do for a living?

JH: My mother was a waitress in a restaurant in Detroit - Clayton's Grill - and my dad was a bulldozer operator. So he traveled quite a bit.

ERT: And so did your family venture into the city at all growing up?

JH: You know, we went to Belle Isle - but I'm trying to think - and my mother worked in Detroit, so we went there, you know, regularly.

ERT: Where was her workplace at?

JH: Puritan and Livernois, right near U of D [University of Detroit].

ERT: Okay.

JH: But you know, as far as the family, most of our family members then lived either in Oakland County or in Warren. So we did a lot of family things. My mother was one of ten, so had a lot of get-togethers and so on, with all those people, so - and my mother's still alive at age 98.

ERT: Wow.

JH: Mm hm. But yeah, but there was never any sense of "don't go to the city," because when I was 10, my sister was 13 and our cousin was 13, we would meet up at my grandmother's house at Eight Mile and John R. We would catch the Woodward bus and go down to the Fox Theatre to see all the rock and roll shows.

ERT: Oh, okay.

JH: On our own.

ERT: So, you guys did come into the city.

JH: Oh yeah. But I mean this is three girls on the bus. You know, probably fifty cents, twenty cents, I don't know what it was, but yeah. We had a lot of activities that way. But you know, my grandmother lived in Detroit. There just wasn't that sense, you know, of I'm going to say danger, like some people still think today, so yeah. A lot of, you know, good memories, I would say. Taking advantage of the great opportunities the city had. Yeah.

ERT: Do you have any other memories or impressions of the city at that time, or downtown area?

JH: Well, in high school, you mean?

ERT: Growing up, yeah. Up to high school.

JH: Well, I think we had marched in the parade, you know the Christmas parade. But for the most part no, I would just say going to Belle Isle and the Fox Theatre. Going to the family restaurant where my mother worked, rather, was just the limit of it. Because when you're in school, you know, you don't drive, so - but my sister had gone to school at Detroit Business Institute, DBI, and so she would take the Van Dyke bus to school every day. And she worked in Detroit, too, at the Detroit Industrial Clinic over on Hancock and Woodward, for five years.

ERT: And once you graduated from high school, did you go to college?

JH: Yep. Came to Wayne State University from '63 to '67, and I was - I had enrolled in Monteith College, which was an excellent education, and I went straight through for four years. And because that was a small school within a large university, we had that sense of, you know, community, I would say. Got to know the instructors very well, you could call them by their first names, and for - I graduated with 27 people, basically, in my class, in '67. And I graduated with a PhB - B as in boy - which is a Bachelor of Philosophy. Not a Bachelor of Science or Arts or anything. So, we had like a philosophical approach to all the studies - the humanities, social studies, natural science. So, it was perfect for me. And the one outstanding memory that I had being a student here was Malcolm X had come to the campus, and I wanted to hear what he had to say.

ERT: Oh wow.

JH: And so it was a State Hall - packed -

ERT: Do you remember what year that was, right about?

JH: You know, I don't. I'm trying to think whether it was like - well, when did he die? Was it '64 or '65? I'm thinking '64. You know, but I'm not real sure. But it was spirited - and you know, he was a fiery speaker so in a way, it was frightening to me, you know, but I was there to listen. So I think I was fortunate to hear - you know, to hear him, because he was a voice that was - you know, gaining influence, and shared observations that he felt strongly about.

ERT: What other - speaking about Malcolm X and the Civil Rights movement, what other memories do you have of that period? Being at Wayne State?

JH: Well, we had lively discussions about the Palestinian/Arab conflict at that time, because the Seven Year War, and I went to one rally where - it was - people pitted against one another. Some pro-Israel, some pro-Arab. I happened to be dating an Arab at the time, so you know, he explained that, you know, he had a scar like here, across his chest, from being in Ramallah at the time when there was an invasion by Israeli soldiers. And I got a sense of, you know, the struggle for human rights is a universal struggle, and it's not simplistic. Not black and white. There's all kinds of shades in between. So that was an eye opener. That's what I loved about Wayne. There was a diversity of people.

ERT: Yeah, that was one of my questions.

JH: To me that was excellent. Oh yeah.

ERT: How was the campus? Was it fairly integrated at that time?

JH: Yes! Oh, definitely. And - and I just think that was so - so strong for everybody, you know, to be sitting in the same classroom, exploring ideas, discussing - and then - Monteith was excellent for that though, because we had large lectures but small discussion groups after every large lecture, so that was excellent. And that fostered that kind of, you know, say, exploration.

ERT: So were you involved in any other groups, rallies, or protests at that time?

JH: No, not really. Because I was working part-time, I was real active in my church. I worked at Monteith College in one of the offices. You know, so there's just no time to do that. And I commuted every day from Warren at the time. And because my sister worked right here, I got a ride with her every day to campus, and then from campus.

ERT: You were mentioning your activities in the church?

JH: Mm hm.

ERT: Can you speak a little bit about what those were at that time?

JH: Yeah. I started teaching catechism, is what we called it in those days, religious education, probably just like in high school and then after high school I was involved with a Sodality group - group of a 120-some young gals and we had monthly meetings, and we were just connected with the church, and so we got to know people that way, and we raised money for the parish. I was on the Parish Council and so, you look at the issues facing the parish and try to come up with solutions. But I'm just trying to think - oh, I know - one question that I raised at the Parish Council was how are we preparing for integration? And the pastor didn't see the need for the conversation.

One other time, another pastor had written in the parish bulletin, you know, kind of be on the lookout for what he called "darkies," you know, and if you see anything, call. So, I wrote him a letter of protest and just said this is wrong - morally wrong - how could you say this? So, we had a little conversation after that. But I was told later that - from an associate pastor - that because I challenged him, he respected me more. But did it do any good? I don't know. But it was offensive to me, so see that in writing, you know. So he was - I didn't think he was fostering understanding, but rather fomenting fear.

ERT: So how did you personally deal with your faith and challenging, sort of, the injustices in society? And advocating for justice - how did you balance that?

JH: Well, I think my faith is really quite clear and strong about equality of people - the dignity of all people. I'm one quarter Native American, one quarter Norwegian, so of course I look like the Norwegian grandfather, you know, not the Native American grandfather - but because of that background, I know what it is to be oppressed, as a people, to suffer injustices, to be kicked out of your homeland, let's say. So, I think that was also something that I think made me more sensitive or more aware, and upset by indignities and inequalities. I loved Martin Luther King's speeches, and to me it seemed so evident, you know, how right it was to talk about equality, and fairness of opportunity and that kind of thing. So you know, I think hearing his speeches and seeing the footage on TV was shocking at the time. So -

ERT: Footage of what, specifically?

JH: Well, you know, the protests down South. And hearing his speeches. Now I did not participate in the '63 march down Woodward when King was here.

ERT: Right.

JH: But I know people who were. But I think because I felt - I feel - that I am an oppressed people because of the Native American background - I think I - you know, I empathize with people who are struggling for their rightful place in society.

ERT: So, during these times, were you aware of any racial tensions in the city, or perhaps injustices in the city? Did you see any of those?

JH: In high school, probably not. Because I'm trying to think - in our classes, did we ever discuss it? You know, not that I recall. We were discussing, kind of like, equal rights - and this is between sports people and non-sports people, because the sports - all the sports - the athletes got all the money and the rest of the classes didn't get anything but - we had a little protest that way. But no, not really, we didn't discuss it. But it wasn't - I don't know. Maybe it wasn't on anybody's radar, in a sense, because it was Centerline, you know. But we had excellent teachers - but it just never came up.

ERT: What about during your time here at Wayne, studying in Detroit? Did you get a sense of any of those issues?

JH: Well, I would say yes. Mostly because of what hit the newspapers and what we were seeing on TV. Discussion of legislation that was necessary. I think it was just that general awareness. And right now, I can't recall any specific class that would address that, or any kind of conference. I don't recall that at all. But it was - I think - the Daily Collegian was the paper in those days, and so issues would be raised in the Daily Collegian, so, you'd pick up the paper, you'd be more aware of that. But I think it was more a general awareness of what was happening, more nationally, than anything in Detroit.

ERT: And so thinking about '67 - the summer of '67 - it was right around your graduation.

JH: Right. Just after. I graduated in June.

ERT: So, when did you first hear about the events of '67?

JH: Well, it was that Sunday afternoon immediately after, you know, the raid on that blind pig. And I was at Stony Creek with my friend Michael Lada, and we heard about it on the news. And because he lived in Highland Park, you know, he decided he better get home. So, then we left right away and I thought maybe he could stay with, you know, my dad and me, but he decided to go back home. When they called him that night, though, you could hear the gunfire in the background, so he was at Hazelwood and Woodward. So it was very close to some of the action. But he was not harmed. And he worked downtown at an architectural firm, so he did not go to work that following week, I think it was.

And then in Warren - I lived in Warren at the time - there was a curfew that was levied. So you could not go out like after six o'clock or so. So that was strange to see deserted streets in your community. My mother worked, as I said, at Clayton's Grill at Puritan and Livernois - she did not hear about - she was living in a separate place from me - but she did not hear anything on the news so she went right down Eight Mile, ready to go to work, and was stopped by a National Guardsman who said, "Well, ma'am, where are you going?" She said, "I'm going to work." He said "Well no, you know, you're not able to. You'll have to go back home."

But at the time, I was working for the archdiocese and we had scheduled adult training programs that week. And because there was a diocesan-wide program involving eight counties - all the parishes, so it was like 325 parishes - and our job, initially, was to set up these training classes. Well, because they were scheduled that week, we were at home and we were asked by our bosses - we were given a list of parishes to call, and phone numbers, and we had to call everyone to say it's being rescheduled because of the disturbance.

And at the time, I had mentioned Cardinal Dearden, had an immediate response, he was the Archbishop of Detroit, which was 1.25 million Catholics. He was on vacation at the time and returned, and you know, wanted to be here, to offer that moral voice, number one, and to try to help Catholics understand what was going on. So, there was an immediate statement, news release, and then a letter sent to all the parishes that was to be published in their bulletins, about the importance of this issue and what we need to do to respond to it in a moral way. And to help people understand, you know, why did this happen.

So, he was - I brought this article from the Michigan Catholic that shows Archbishop Dearden addressing the National Guard at St. Rose of Lima Parish on the east side. It's no longer around, but the article is excellent. It gives a Catholic perspective of what was happening at the time. But Cardinal Dearden, I think, rose to the challenge and tried to sensitize and educate Catholics to the moral principles - the moral dilemma - you know, the moral response. So he did a very good job, I think, of standing tall. And the next year, he allocated one million dollars to programs for education, for opportunity, for - let's say community organizations, and that was from an archdiocesan development fund. Well there was a lot of pushback from that, from many white Catholics, thinking "That's ridiculous. Why is he giving away our money?"

But as - you know, I've got some resources here. As he said, sometimes - "when we choose to do things for reasons profoundly moral and religious, we cannot always be expected to be understood." So, he took the high road, trying to say, this is the right thing to do. You may not understand why, the need for it, but it is necessary. So, he - the rebellion, the riot of '67, I think really raised the consciousness of many people. You know, as to the seriousness of the issues - the racial divide - racial inequality. So, from that point on, though, he had offices to help with justice - peace and justice - community affairs, he established a secretariat for black Catholics and for Latin America - Latino, I think it was - Hispanic - Hispanic Secretariat. So he tried to institute - not just words - processes, you know, and programs. But underlying it would be the challenge to be morally converted, I think, to the needs of people.

So - and it still continues, you know. There's a lot of good programs in the archdiocese. There's one-on-one, parish-to-parish, it's called Interparish Sharing, so that continues. Focus: HOPE, as you know, started in '68.

ERT: It did.

JH: Started by three people. Not just two people, I want to make that note. Father Jerry Frazier was also a co-founder, with Bill Cunningham and Eleanor Josaitis. So - you know, all these things were going on simultaneously, because, you know, the need was great, and there was urgency, you know, to - quote - "do something" - but it wasn't just throwing money at the problem. It was trying to help people understand the - you know, the personal affront that people had suffered, you know, through discrimination and lack of opportunity. Lack of open housing.

ERT: Sure. I'm getting back a little bit to the events of that particular week, in '67. Outside of your mother, you mentioned, and yourself, with the curfew, was there anyone else in your home, or even in your extended family, that was impacted by the events of that week?

JH: Not that I know of at all. I wouldn't know. My sister probably did not go to work, because it was right here on Woodward and Hancock.

ERT: Were you working in the city at that time?

JH: Yes, right, at the archdiocese, downtown. 305 Michigan Avenue.

ERT: You had no issues commuting back and forth downtown at that time?

JH: No. No. When you know a place, and you're familiar with it, you know, it's an extension of your life. So no. I worked for the most part, 30 years in the city in different religious organizations, Sacred Heart Seminary, the Capuchins, the Archdiocese of Detroit. So, you know, that's kind of where - it's where - you know, I like being involved with a nonprofit group that makes a difference, so, you know, it's been wonderful, and - the other thing that resulted, though, from my parish level, though, is we had - now this is in '68, though, the year following. The archbishop encouraged every parish to have small group discussions, in their homes, with their neighbors, about race. And so I hosted a session. There were like three or four people there, but, you know. It was just good to talk about it.

So, you know, I think, you know, the archbishop especially should be given, you know, great respect for all that he tried to do, and throughout his ministry as leader of the Archdiocese of Detroit, which was from '58 to 1980, when he retired. So he was quite, you know, quite a great leader, you know, with great courage.

ERT: And do you remember what the particular feelings were at the archdiocese that week? In response to the events that were happening that particular week?

JH: Well, we were not there, for number one, we were not working downtown, because, you know, the restrictions of travel, but, you know, I think it was shock, you know, shock that there could be such explosive turn of events, you know, shock that there would be so much anger, and destruction of property, but, you know, I think it's - trying to think, did we ever have any discussion about it, per se - I don't know, but because we were involved with adult education, we had a lot of classes and lectures and so on, on - what would you call it? - just, you know, it's a human dignity, civil rights, racial harmony, and so on, so.

ERT: So, when people refer to the events of '67, oftentimes they may call it a riot, a rebellion, an uprising - what would you - what words would you use to describe the events of '67, and why?

JH: I call it a riot, because you saw people destroying property, setting fires, and looting, you know. I don't - I don't know - I don't know the subtle differences of rebellion or riot, but to me it had - because of, you know, I would say, you know, the destruction of property, you know, that - to me it was a riot. And I don't know, does it make a difference? I think, if you know the facts, I don't know that it's that critical, but maybe other people disagree with me.

ERT: Do you feel that the events of '67 have had a long-lasting effect on the city?

JH: Yes, I do, and a negative effect, because the areas where the events happened, you know, it was, you know, thriving businesses, and now there's so little there, and I think it increased misunderstanding and hostility between the races, and I think it's unfortunate, because I'm more of the Martin Luther King, Gandhi approach - non-violence. Non-violence is a better solution to moral problems, than those kind of physical, violent protests. So, you know, I think you win over hearts and minds through means that are not violent or destructive.

ERT: And what do you think about the city today?

JH: Well, I'm very happy to see the resurgence. But I - as I said - I've always been like a Detroit supporter, though. Having worked in the city and seeing all that it offered, in terms of diversity and unique attractions, and cuisine and so on, so I - I'm happy to see that businesses have worked together with the city, you know, to try to continue to make progress and opportunity. So, I hope it continues. And I think, you know, Gilbert has played a tremendous role, but so did Karmanos. To bring people to the city for specific reasons is helpful, you know, and - and if you work downtown, then I think you have more of that, you know, feeling that, you know, there's a vitality now. And there was in '67, you know. I was here when we had the '68 World Series parade, with the Tigers.

ERT: Really.

JH: You know. So, our office was facing Michigan Avenue, so when we're all listening to the radio and they won, everybody's throwing, you know, confetti and paper out the windows, honking their horns, people hugging. It was fabulous. And we needed something, you know, in the city to, you know, boost our spirits, I would say, because I think the events of '67 were so serious, and people still talk about it and I think they're - it's unfortunate that it happened, but it happened, so where do we go from here, but, you know, I just - I think it's too bad that violence erupted.

ERT: Do you feel that the Tiger’s season in '68 and the World Series in '68, do you feel that they had a - a positive impact on the city at that time?

JH: Absolutely! Absolutely! No, I mean, there was a sense of - we have something to celebrate. And it was all races of people so happy. It was beautiful to behold. Just beautiful to behold that. And I think, you know, baseball is something that, you know, it kind of appeals to a lot of different people, a lot of different ages as well, different genders. So it's not just white men enjoying it, so. But I think it was, you know, it was wonderful, and what we see now in Detroit, I think, all contributes to that.

A friend of mine lives in Cleveland and she had talked about the partnership between government and the community, and then - maybe culture. She said it's really made a difference in there community, so I'd like to see that here.

ERT: So, are you optimistic about where the city's headed?

JH: Absolutely, yeah. I think there's a lot of reason to be happy. The school situation needs to be addressed, though, because families cannot be raising their children in an area where you don't have schools, and I have worked for the Catholic School Alliance, this was for three years, from 2001 to 2004, and I did marketing for seven Catholic schools, and they were all in the city, and they all provided fabulous education. You know, if you had the tuition to pay for it. But it's been sad for me to see the lack of support by the Archdiocese to these Catholic schools, teachers, and the principals who did such an exceptional level of education, and I worked there, as I say, for three years, and all seven schools, not once did I hear anybody swearing, no fights. Great respect between teachers and the students and the parents. It was beautiful. So it hurts me to the core to know that of those seven schools, only two now exist, and that's a short amount of time, you know, thirteen years.

So education needs to be addressed, and - you know, there's only three, I think three elementary schools in the city now. Holy Trinity, Christ the King, and Jesu. And it's too bad that there's the perception that, okay, separation of church and state prohibits any kind of cooperation, but I think we should be able to figure out something so that quality is recognized and affirmed and supported.

ERT: Sure.

JH: So, you know, but I don't know where that's going to go. But that's a real significant part of what the city faces, and the residents face, and you know, the school board faces, and the new superintendent, New Detroit, I mean, there's so many good organizations that are seeking to improve, you know, the quality of life, and the equality of life.

ERT: Well, before we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to talk about?

JH: Yes. Let me see. One other thing I wanted to mention about Cardinal Dearden. He was elected president of the National Catholic Council of Bishops, and he was the first elected president, because he was a man of great stature and wisdom. Not conceit. I'm just saying a great intellect and was highly recognized for that. But when he - when he had taken over at the national level, in 1971, or was it '70, let me see, no, 1970, so just a few years after all the riots around the country, he was instrumental in initiating what they call the Campaign for Human Development. And that was to raise funds within each diocese across the country to actually fund grassroots organizations that maybe did not have funding from larger groups, but they needed money to get started. So, it was a way of directly impacting organizations that were trying to assist people who were poor, in whatever way, whether it's education, food, you know, services. That started in 1970, and their initial goal was to raise $50 million. And one quarter of those monies would stay within each diocese. So, it was a win-win situation.

But it was not meant just to raise money, and as he said, so he said, our goal must not be just for raising of money, but the changing of hearts. And this was in a letter sent to all of the parishes in Detroit. So he had that visibility and that real ongoing effort to help people understand what's at stake here, and he was not afraid to, you know, stand up and say this is the right thing to do. Unfortunately, our current archbishop has not continued this program, as of a few years ago. Part of it, it's perception - some of these groups fund abortion. Well, it's a phony excuse. You know sometimes they just don't want to, you know, support groups that you might not have direct control over. But still, it's things like On the Rise Bakery, are you familiar with that, with the Capuchins?

ERT: I am, a little bit.

JH: Yes.

ERT: I've heard of them.

JH: They received money from the Campaign for Human Development. So now they're not going to get it. The monies are going to be gotten through Catholic charities. But it's just - it's not the same - so I - it's an unfortunate turn of events, but many dioceses across the country still do it. So I think you know, hats off to him, because they're trying to address the causes of poverty, which has a lot to do with, you know, inequality, and you know, problems with trying to make it in our society, so I just wanted to mention that that was, you know, a wonderful program to initiate, and they say it still continues. So Dearden is one of my heroes, and I'm writing a book about him, because his legacy has not been ever recorded. So having worked at the diocese and worked with him, I want to record that legacy. Because it's important. Because he was humble, he didn't get - didn't make a lot of, you know, splashes, so a lot of people, you know, nationally, don't know of him. So, I want to correct that.

ERT: It's wonderful.

JH: So that's what I'm doing in my spare time. But really, he was right there in the forefront, from the very beginning. As the diocese was. And Bishop Tom Gumbleton, I know you know of him, was appointed to be auxiliary bishop by Cardinal Dearden, and he has - he helped funnel a lot of monies through, I think it was Johnson, you know, a lot of money - the poverty program - the funds came here to Detroit and Gumbleton was instrumental in helping to allocate those, so, he'd be a good interview. Tom Gumbleton? I might have his number. But I think he'd be so good. And you know, he has - he's a prophet. He has a great compassion for the poor, and those without, and he serves all people. Just a minute. Because he would be excellent. This is his - well, I'll just, I'll read it to you, his -

ERT: Well, we can't, on the - on the record.

JH: Okay, all right, it says "cell" right there.

ERT: Thank you so much.

JH: Can you see the 313?

ERT: Yes. Well thank you so much for stopping in today, and speaking with us about your memories of '67. We really appreciate it.

JH: Oh, definitely. You're welcome. Yeah, I mean, it's a great - it's a great program. Glad to be a part of it.

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MPS: Hit record. I’m not even sure if this is going to work to record, because I’ve got you on speakerphone, you know. It might work. It might not. But that’s okay. I’m going to take notes too while we’re talking, so. So the first question is, what are your earliest memories of Detroit? And it’s not like—it’s just your memories of what it was like to be there in Detroit.

WP: It was totally different than you would imagine now. At that time—remember, Detroit was where everybody lived. There weren’t suburbs. There weren’t malls. There weren’t—everybody, if you shopped and you wanted to really go shopping, you went to downtown Detroit. The streets were jammed with people all the time. Jammed. I mean, like when you go down now for the Fourth of July fireworks, it was like that every day. Hudson’s, of course, was the big department store. But it was a place where you had to have a little bit more money to go to Hudson’s. A lot of people couldn’t afford to go there. But they had—their elevators actually had elevator operators, who wore uniforms and white gloves, who opened and shut the doors. You know, it was—they had this wheel they turned to close the doors. And they were noted for their service. Even if you wanted a spool of thread, they would deliver it to your house.

MPS: Oh my gosh.

WP: So it was—and there were all these movie theatres all over the place, and they weren’t just theatres, they were—like, the Fox Theatre now? That was one of my least favorites. That was one of the least ornate. The most ornate is gone, the Michigan Theatre. And it was truly a power. I mean, it was guild and gold all over, rich carpeting, and I remember throne chairs. It was just beautiful. And they would seat, like, three or four thousand people in some of these theatres. And there was probably ten of them downtown. The Adams, the Palms, the United Artist, the Michigan, the Fox, which was kind of out of the way. And I can remember it was like a quarter to go, and mother used to bring us as a special treat.

MPS: Was that a lot of money?

WP: And I remember the Fillmore, when it went up to 35 cents.

MPS: Was a quarter a lot of money, or no?

WP: Ah, darn. To hell with that. You could go to the neighborhood theatre for 10 cents.

MPS: Oh, okay.

WP: Which reminds me—just because you said that, I’m going to put this in while I remember it. People bought insurance policies at that time. The insurance man came to your house and you paid weekly, because people couldn’t afford it. So like my mother had a policy, it was twenty cents a week. So he would come—the insurance man would come to your house to collect the 20 cents. And that’s how you bought your life insurance.

MPS: It was like 20 cents a week you said?

WP: A week, yeah. And he would come and pick up the money. But downtown was a special place. That’s where everybody shopped. And I remember the big Kern’s Clock. If you wanted to meet someone downtown, you said, “Well, I’ll meet you under the Kern’s Clock.” Because there were so many people and so many—you would never find anybody. So you had to have a special meeting place.

MPS: Where was that?

WP: And as a treat, my mother would take us to Kresge’s dime store. And the big Kresge’s downtown was two stories, two floors, and in the basement floor they had a lunch counter, and there were so many people, people would line up behind your chair waiting for your stool. I mean, so you might have two or three people standing behind you, just waiting for your chair. They would stand right behind you. And my mom would buy us a hot fudge sundae. I remember that. But that was a special treat for us. We thought it was great. But that’s how crowded it was. And when you go downtown now, it’s a ghost town. But it’s where everybody went. And there weren’t buses. There were streetcars, and they ran on tracks in the middle of the street, and you had overhead wires down the street because they were electric. So they were connected to these overhead wires, and sometimes they became disconnected and then the streetcar would be stopped. But that’s how everybody traveled. It was rarely by car. Streetcar or walked.

MPS: How much was it to ride the streetcar?

WP: That I don’t remember. Because my mother paid. We were just kids. So, I don’t know. Probably not very much. I know we walked because my grandmother lived—I don’t know, three or four miles away, and we walked. That’s how we got down there. I’m trying to remember anything else about downtown. Kresge’s eventually was the forerunner of Kmart and that’s when the dime stores—all that went when Kmart started. The first Kmart in the country was in Garden City. But it was started by the S.S. Kresge Company. And then dime stores disappeared once Kmart, you know, sort of became popular. You could get everything you wanted there. But what’s interesting is now, all these dollar stores are starting, which are really the same as the old dime stores we had when I was a kid. Only they were much bigger. But now there’s dollar stores all over the place. But it’s the same idea. Instead of ten cents it’s a dollar. Ask another question.

MPS: Okay.

WP: Another thing I remember was the streets. Detroit was loaded with elm trees, and they were huge, and they would actually form, like, an archway to a cathedral over the streets. So the trees would actually touch each other either side of the street. So it would look like you were looking down a church. You know how in Europe, how the cathedrals are with the ceilings, the arched ceilings? That’s how all the streets looked with the elm trees. Until Dutch elm disease came along and killed them all.

MPS: Do you know around when that happened? Like, just approximately.

WP: I don’t know if we still lived in Detroit at that time. I just remember it happening, and going back to my old neighborhood, and it was so awful when I saw—it wasn’t like I remembered as a kid.

MPS: Now, when you were living in Detroit, you didn’t move into grandma’s house until you were 13, right?

WP: Grandma who?

MPS: Well, grandma grandma. Your mom.

WP: Well, we lived with Grandma Penny at that time, Grandma Pattinson. My mother lived with them from the time they were married.

MPS: Okay, I—what part of Detroit is that in because I didn’t know.

WP: It was the west side. What they called the west side.

MPS: Where is it today? Like, what area are we talking about?

WP: It’s an awful neighborhood today. It’s at Fenkell and Wyoming which is just a terrible, terrible neighborhood. Most of the houses are torn down. But at that time it was a very nice neighborhood. And one thing that was interesting, and one of the things that killed Detroit, really was prejudice. I remember my grandmother saying that—and this is my Grandma Penny—

MPS: Okay.

WP: There were actually restrictions on the deeds to the houses that blacks could not buy your house, and I believe Jews as well. I remember my grandmother saying blacks will never live in this neighborhood because it’s on the deed that they can’t. And that didn’t change probably until the fifties or sixties. So Detroit was primarily a white city, except in certain pockets where blacks were allowed to live. So I never—like, I never came across a Jewish person until I went to work. When I was an adult. You didn’t see them. You didn’t know them. Because they lived in their own neighborhood.

MPS: How old were you, when you say you went to work?

WP: Well, we lived on Wisconsin. That was the name of the street, until I was about 10, 11. I went to live with my aunt when I was 12. So up until about 11. It was a two-story house—two-family house, rather.

MPS: Oh, okay.

WP: And it had one door, but separate stairs—you know, they had like a separate apartment upstairs.

MPS: Like the kind Cheryl lived in?

WP: Pardon?

MPS: Like the kind Cheryl lived in? Remember when Ashley died, that kind?

WP: I think so.

MPS: Okay.

WP: I mean, it had its own bathroom, its own kitchen, the living room, bedroom.

MPS: Right.

WP: Dining room. Because we were three kids—two kids—well, later three. The living room was changed into a bedroom. It was my parent’s bedroom, and Kathy, or my sister, lived up in there with them. And then when Colleen was born she slept in my room. And what was supposed to be the dining room was the living room—became the living room. But sometimes my grandmother would need money. So she’d rent it out, and my mother and father would have to move back downstairs, and we lived with my grandmother. And I can remember I slept with her, in her bedroom, and my parents had the other bedroom. It was two bedrooms. And that just didn’t seem unusual to us at all. It was just the way it was. We lived up or down, depending on whether they needed money or not.

There was rationing because the war was going on. You had coupons, and you could only get so much sugar, and once your coupons were gone then that was it. That was your allotment for the month. Gas was rationed. That’s why you didn’t see that many cars—people really thought twice about going somewhere. And also they stopped building cars during World War II because they needed all the steel for the war effort, to build tanks and so on. So the car companies were turned into companies to make war materials.

And that’s—because there was a shortage of men to work in the factories. That’s when women started doing that type of work. Before that it would have been considered just men’s work. And that’s when they came up with the term Rosie the Riveter. Now there were women were working in factories that had previously been considered men’s jobs. Because before that, women would never have been able to work in a factory. If they worked, it was because they weren’t married yet, and they worked as secretaries, stenographers, sales clerks, that sort of thing. But once they got married—and I’m talking about the majority, I’m sure there must have been exceptions—but lower-class and middle-class women stayed home and took care of the children if they had children, and even those that didn’t have children generally stayed home. Women just didn’t work. She was totally dependent on her husband, that’s the way it was supposed to be.

They even had separate days—I remember women had—and I don’t know, like, Monday might be wash day. They spent the day washing clothes using either scrub boards or wringer washing machines, where the clothes had to be—they were washed in a big tub, and then you had to put them one by one through a wringer to wring them out, wring the water out. And then you put them in a rinse tub and then you hung them up to dry. And I remember helping my mother once—and this was quite common—my hand got caught in the wringer and started going through the wringer. And I can remember kids, when I was little, having scars on their arms or their hands. Their parents weren’t able to get them out of the wringer quick enough.

MPS: What happened, what did you do?

WP: Well, my mother pulled mine out. I can still remember that happening. I was trying to help her.

MPS: Carly went to this thing—I don’t know, it was a few months ago with the girl scouts—and it was an old town thingy, and they had to—actually Evan went to, it was her girl scout troop—but they had to wash clothes and put them through a wringer, and she said, “Now, watch your fingers. I’m going to turn the wringer, but you’re going to feed the cloth in, do not get your fingers caught in there.” And they did it, but—

WP: Well, it wasn’t that uncommon. I remember a girl in school having scars all up around her elbow, especially where her arm had gone all the way, you know, up to the top before they could get it out.

MPS: Oh my god.

WP: And then there would be ironing day. So my mother would spend all day ironing, and everything was ironed. Sheets were ironed. Pillow cases were ironed. Underwear was ironed. Everything was ironed. And if you didn’t do that, you just weren’t a good—I mean, that was your role. You were just not a good wife.

MPS: I have to tell you, I bought a new iron, and Shawn was laughing, she’s like, “Why are you going to buy an iron,” she’s like, “You hardly ever iron.” I said, “I know, but my dad comes every year and he always wants to use my iron and it has been ruined for like eight years. Missy burned her clothes on it when she was living with me eight, 10 years ago, and every time he comes he burns his shirt.” And so—

WP: Well, grandma always took great pride in her ironing, because she worked in a laundry when she was a teenager, and so she was—I mean, that was her specialty was ironing. And they actually—the clothes had to be starched too. I mean, after you washed them, and then you put them in this big pan with starch in it, so they would be stiff. So when you ironed them they would be—because they didn’t have permanent press back then, everything was cotton which means it was wrinkled, so it had to be starched before you ironed it so it would be smooth. So that was a whole day. And then there was cleaning day, so you spent the whole day cleaning. And then there was grocery shopping. And you had to remember that a man would never, ever think of doing any of this. I mean, it was just—a man would not do this. A man would not even go into a supermarket. That was women’s—what women did. You didn’t see men shop. Kids would go with their mother but not men. That was women’s work. The grocery shopping.

When people socialized, men and women did not mix together. The men would separate into one room. The women would separate into the other room. Where they would smoke and swear and drink and then the women would do whatever they did. And up to a certain age it was okay for a boy to be with the women but after a certain age you really weren’t supposed to be with the women. You were supposed to go then and spend your time with the men and if you didn’t, I mean, they kind of looked at you kind of funny, like, What’s wrong with you? You want to be with the women? I mean, there was so much role playing. It was just—I don’t know how to explain it but it was just so different than it is now. Where people don’t think twice about it.

But it was just—I remember the women, I mean, they listened to—remember, there wasn’t TV. There wasn’t anything like that. There was just the radio which was a big piece of equipment in the house. It was a big piece of furniture. It wasn’t just a little thing. So I remember my mother listening to the soap operas while she did her work. Her cleaning and her ironing. But that stuff—you didn’t miss her soap operas during the day. Portia Faces Life, Della Dallas, Mott Perkins, I remember them all because I listened to them all with my mother. And when you were a kid, you actually—you sat next to the radio. Maybe—and I don’t know why we sat next to it, but I would be on one side, my sister would be on the other side, listening to the radio. And I was trying to think today, Why would we do that? Well, maybe it’s because my parents were reading and they didn’t want it too loud. So that was the only way we could hear it. I don’t know. I really don’t know the reason but that’s what we did. We sat and listened to it.

MPS: They do that on The Waltons.

WP: The Shadow Knows, Batman, Baby Snookum, all those shows. And I remember hating Sundays because my father would listen to baseball in the afternoon and the opera at night. I just, I dreaded Sundays, because we had to listen to that. I hated baseball and I hated the opera.

Also, kids didn’t play in the house. In the winter we did but in the summer you didn’t want to be in the house. You would go out in the early morning and you wouldn’t come home until it was starting to get dark at night. And we just entertained ourselves. We played in the alleys, we played kick games, hide-and-go-seek, walk, release. I remember just all kinds of games. You didn’t want to be in the house. It wasn’t that your mother kicked you out. You didn’t want to be—you wanted to be with the kids. We just played outside all the time. I think we were a little better than kids nowadays at entertaining ourselves because there was nothing to distract us. We didn’t have TV. We didn’t have stereos. We didn’t have—we just had the radio.

MPS: I think that is so true. That’s one of the things that Mark and I really are very conscious of and that’s why we limit how much TV the kids watch. Honestly, my kids would sit there and watch TV all day if I let them, and I don’t, and because of that they do—they are able to play on their own. They will play for hours. Like yesterday, they played the entire day, most of it in the house because it was so hot outside, but they played. And I was sick—actually, that’s why I didn’t call you yesterday. I was so sick and I’m still sick but I took some medicine so I could call you, but—my sinuses are acting up—but they played all day, and they never even asked to watch TV. They went from one game to another. I mean, not games, they were just playing, you know? It was just amazing to me.

But then I’m in Meijer’s today and there’s this kid playing his Gameboy while his mom—I mean, he’s standing there. She’s in line to buy lunch meat at the deli counter and he’s playing his Gameboy. And, you know, I don’t know. You know, I mean, my kids were fooling around, but I’d rather have them fooling around than—I don’t know, just being totally oblivious of the world around them.

WP: I remember people had milk chutes in their house because a milk man delivered your milk. The milk truck would come by so often, every day or every couple of days, and put the milk in your milk chute, and that’s how you got your milk. And there would be this thick cream on top which would be so deep because the cream would separate from the milk. I remember it had cardboard caps on it. They were in bottles. It wasn’t in cartons. The milk came in bottles. And we would, you know, try to eat some of that cream because it was always so good.

MPS: Can I tell you, I actually remember that. When we lived in Romulus. I don’t think we had a milk chute but the milk man would come and leave bottles of milk on our porch every day. I couldn’t have been more than four or five. I mean, we moved when I was six. But I remember the milk man. I remember him coming and I remember him leaving quart-size glass bottles on the porch every day, or every few days, or whatever.

WP: There was a man who would come by periodically to sharpen your knives. He would walk down the street with his cart and he would yell out, “Sharpen your knives, sharpen your knives or your scissors.” In my grandmother’s neighborhood there was a produce truck that used to come by, you know, he would yell out and you’d go buy your fresh produce from him. There was one we called the sheeny man.

MPS: Yeah, what is that?

WP: Who drove a cart with a horse and he was a junk collector. That’s what he did. He was known as the sheeny man.

_______(??)

Schools were much, much different.

MPS: What did you say?

WP: Schools.

MPS: Okay, because that’s my next question anyways, is what were the schools like?

WP: You had a tremendous amount of respect and fear of your teachers. They were allowed to use—to spank you and to hit you. I mean, to hit your hand with a ruler was—especially in the campus climate, was accepted. I could remember getting my hand slapped with a ruler by a substitute teacher. It happened all the time. Or they would use humiliation to the keep kids in line. Like if you were chewing gum, you might have to stand in front of the room and put your gum on your nose in front of all of the kids. Or they had what they called the dunce chair. You had to sit in a chair with a dunce cap on your head. And I can remember my cousin telling me his teacher locked him in a close. He had to stay in the closet. Those are some of the negative things but kids were much more respectful. I mean, you just didn’t have—you didn’t dare get in trouble because you knew if you got in trouble at school and you went home, you would be in even bigger trouble because you got in trouble with the teacher. Your parents totally supported the teacher. I mean, you just learned not to get in trouble at school, period. And if you did, you would get it when you got home.

I can remember air raid drills in school. Where they would have an air raid drill. I don’t remember if a bell that would ring or what. I don’t remember now.

MPS: Was this during the war or after the atomic bomb?

WP: It was after the atomic bomb. You had to get under your desk. I remember that. Like that would save you from an atomic bomb. Or go out in the hallway and go down to the school’s basement and sit on the floor with your head between your legs. And that was the air raid drill. They would do that periodically. So often. I don’t remember—we had to do that. I don’t know when that stopped.

MPS: Did you ever see the movie Atomic Café?

WP: No.

MPS: It’s sort of a parody but it is—it is hilarious. And it’s all about—

WP: It was true, and it scared—I mean, people were petrified.

MPS: It’s all about air raid drills, and they do all this stuff on duck and cover. And they show actual video footage of government films that were put out during the time about how to protect yourself form an atomic bomb. And it’s all duck and cover.

WP: Yeah, it was funny.

MPS: It’s so ridiculous.

WP: I’m trying to think, what else about the school? I always adored my teachers except for the first grade teacher which actually affected me right up through college. I had a first grade teacher who was a witch and I remember her sending me down. We had to audition for a play and I didn’t get the part. When I got back up she said, “Did you get it?” I said no, and she grabbed my ear and yanked it. And I don’t know what else she did but after that I was petrified of teachers.

I mean, it just—I would sit there in fear that a teacher would call on me in class and I wouldn’t know the answer. So in my mind, whenever they would ask me questions, I would just go blank. And it was all back to that first grade experience. I remember that. Kindergarten was wonderful. Of course, kindergarten was much different than it is now.

MPS: Right.

WP: Stuff that kids can do in kindergarten now probably was second grade stuff back then. You’d just played. It was to learn to be social with other kids. Singing songs and playing. They had all kinds of games and toys. That was kindergarten. The kindergarten teacher would play the piano and you would sing songs, and that was it. You didn’t know your ABCs or any—that came later. None of that.

MPS: Wow.

WP: None of it. Anything else. I’m trying to remember.

MPS: Some of the stuff we’ve already talked about but that’s okay. You know, like stuff like when you were in sixth grade and then you—because the way they had the half year.

WP: Oh yeah, we had half years. Because I was—when I transferred schools I was in the second half but they wouldn’t move me up—maybe they gave me the choice. I thought I had a choice to move to seventh grade or go back and take the first part of sixth grade over, and I might have—it might have been my choice. I don’t know. To go back to the sixth and take sixth over. So of course I got all A’s. I loved it [laughs]. It really was so easy that I already had it. And of course I was a teacher’s pet. Because she knew that my father had died and my mother was sick and all us kids had been separated. so _______(??). So she kind of took me under her wing and I became a teacher’s pet. And actually she’s the one that saved me. If it wasn’t for her I don’t know what I would have done. I’ll never forget it.

MPS: What was her name?

WP: Mrs. McCall.

MPS: McCall?

WP: McCall. M-c-C-a-l-l. And I think she only taught that one year. After that she quit teaching.

MPS: Maybe she got married or something.

WP: No. She was already married. I know that.

MPS: Maybe she got pregnant.

WP: I remember the class was misbehaving one day and she actually brought her husband to school to bring control to the class.

MPS: So what do you mean by she saved you?

WP: Because I was so unhappy with—I mean, I lost my father, my mother, and my two sisters all at once, really. And lived with an aunt I hated. I never went outside. I didn’t play with kids. I just went to school and then went home. That was it. I took care of Aunt ______(??) baby. Because she was in bed with her migraines.

MPS: Who was the baby, Patty?

WP: Patty. And also, she probably had some of her migraines because she carried a bottle of wine in her purse to fill up her _____(??). She was probably an alcoholic at the time.

MPS: Okay. Alright, I’m going to go to the next question.

[End Disk 1 Track 1]

[Begin Disk 1 Track 2]

MPS: Yeah, I do. Okay.

WP: Well, like I already said, Detroit was a very bustling city. It actually won the cleanest city award one year. And it’s not the Detroit we know now. I remember when they built Northland Shopping Center, which was the first major shopping center like that in the country. It was so innovative at the time and it was written about in all the magazines and newspapers. This huge shopping center. Well then suddenly people started going out to Northland Shopping Center doing their shopping because it was new and modern and was out of the suburbs and so neighborhoods built up around it. And I remember when they were trying to buy the property to build Northland Shopping Center, my aunt’s brother-in-law owned a plot of land which he grew vegetables on there. We used to call it Uncle Oscar’s garden. And they needed that plot of land to build Northland Shopping Center and they paid him a million dollars to get this plot. Which at that time—I don’t know what that would equate to now because this was back in the fifties. So maybe, 10 million or 15 million. He was able to retire—this was just Uncle Oscar’s garden.

MPS: You’re kidding.

WP: They needed that land to build the shopping center. And again, there were no suburbs. And then the suburbs—people started moving out further because now there’s no more gas rationing. They were building cars again so now the transportation—you know, people—the transportation was there again. They started removing all the streetcars, taking all the overhead lines down, and paving over the tracks that were down the middle of all the major streets, and buses came into being, and they started having buses. I can remember some friends of my mother and father would go to Livonia. They used to call it—we were going out to God’s country. Because that really was out in the country. People built their own houses, I mean, and they were shacks. I mean, they were just—I remember my mother’s friend Margaret really didn’t have a front porch. It was just—they had open sewers behind their house which we thought were creeks or bogs. It was an open sewer.

MPS: Oh! Gross!

WP: But that was ______(??). And people thought nothing at that time also of driving drunk. And there were no seatbelts. Nobody wore seatbelts. And I can remember my friend Marvin ______(??). I can remember him weaving all over the road, driving drunk, drunk and speeding. And nobody thought anything about it. Nobody thought anything of it. It was just accepted. Men drank a lot. It was what men did.

And it was World War II that started changing things. When women started going to work in the factories, all of a sudden they saw what they could do. But things were never really the same again after that. I remember my grandmother went to work in a factory. Grandma Penny. She worked at Metal Moldings. I think was the name of the company. A small factory. Women didn’t drive cars. I mean, none of us—we didn’t think it was unusual that my mother and none of my sisters knew how to drive. But it wasn’t unusual that a woman didn’t know how to drive a car. Because why would they have to? They walked. They took the bus. They stayed home and took care of the children. I mean, that was—they didn’t work. There was no reason for them to know how to drive a car.

MPS: You said—I want to go back to something you said—you said at first there were no suburbs. Then Northland came and the suburbs started building up around it, and then people were moving out further from the city.

WP: Yeah. And part of that was prejudice. What happened was that real estate firms would go into neighborhoods and they would offer a white family a huge price for their house to get them, to sell to blacks. A black family. So they would offer them much more than the house was worth, and of course people would take it. Not tell the neighbors. Not tell anybody. And then the neighbors would see the black family move in and then everybody would put their house up for sale. So of course the real estate companies got all these commissions for all these houses for sale. And they did that neighborhood by neighborhood. It was called blockbusting. And people began to flee to the suburbs to get away from the blacks. Because they would not live with black people. And—I lost my train of thought.

MPS: Why did we move?

WP: From where?

MPS: From Detroit, when we lived in Detroit by grandma, to Romulus.

WP: I saw an ad in the paper about—remember, grandma’s neighborhood was so nice. It was an old Polish neighborhood. But they were building new houses. I saw an ad in the paper and they were offered at like thirteen thousand dollars. I said, “Let’s go look at them.” So we went and looked and we got a new house. We ended up taking a bigger house for sixteen thousand which I didn’t know how we would ever afford it. I even thought we might have to have grandma come live with us because I didn’t know how we would make the hundred dollar payment. [laughs] But that’s why. It was just new, exciting. The house on Plainview was small. It was right up against an alley.

MPS: And by then you already had me and Cheryl?

WP: Right. Well—

MPS: Yeah.

WP: Yeah, you were born.

MPS: I was born.

WP: There was something to do with blockbusting that I was trying to—but anyways, that’s why all the suburbs came into being. And that’s why downtown Detroit died. Partly because of the shopping centers, which then started to proliferate all over the place. I mean, that became—people stopped going downtown. Oh, I know, what I was going to say is actually the 1967 riots in Detroit are what actually finished it off. Downtown Detroit started dying gradually in the fifties but the riots ended it. That was—people fled the city in droves after the riots.

MPS: Okay, I’m going to get to that in just a minute. Hold on one second. Let me see if that’s my next question. I’m going to get to the riots. So hold onto your thoughts on the riots. My next question is—actually before the riots—what was your impression—hold on. Five. What was your impression of race relations in Detroit in the fifties and sixties?

WP: You didn’t have a high opinion of blacks. They were all—I mean, you just had the stereotypes. They ruined the neighborhood if they moved in, they didn’t take care of their houses because they didn’t know how. And they probably didn’t know how because they had never owned property before. But it was a stereotype. Remember, you weren’t around them. They weren’t in your neighborhoods. You didn’t work with them. I didn’t have a job—I mean you didn’t go to school with them. When I went to Cody High School it was only four years old. It was four thousand students. There was only two black students in the whole school. The rest—what does that make?—3,998 students were white.

MPS: Yeah.

WP: So you had no association with them. And you saw what you saw in the movies which was generally—they either could dance well, they could sing, they were dangerous, you were afraid of them. They were just—there weren’t any positive images that you could think of, other than you liked the ones you saw in the movies. If you saw the stereotypical ones in—like in Gone with the Wind and that sort of thing. You liked them. But they didn’t live near you. You had to get away before they came into your neighborhood. If they started coming you would get out quick. You would see for sale signs go up all over the place if one black family moved in. And people just kept going out further and further and further. Partly because land was cheap and partly because blacks kept moving out further and further and further. Especially after the Civil Rights Act in the sixties.

MPS: Okay, that’s the next thing I want to get to actually. What did you think about the Civil Rights Movement during that time? Not what you think about it now but in the sixties.

WP: At that time, I was—the sixties—in my twenties. Then I was becoming sort of idealistic. I was in awe of the people because white people who joined the marchers. That sort of thing. So it was still a mix—there was still prejudice. Like, there was prejudice against Dr. Martin Luther King. Although now I listen to his speeches, I think he was one of the greatest speakers, certainly of my lifetime. But there was a tendency to look down on him a little bit. I was in awe and admiration of the white people that marched with them. The attitudes began to change in a lot of people when they saw what happened in the south, with the spraying people, blacks and whites, with these—

MPS: Fire hoses.

WP: Fire hoses, and having dogs attack them, and Governor Wallace in Alabama blocking the two blacks from entering the schools. I think that’s when my attitude began to change because it was the first time I actually witnessed prejudice, other than what I had heard. Other than knowing that you didn’t want to live with blacks. But I didn’t have any association with them. I didn’t know any. It seems strange now but you didn’t come across them. Unless you lived in the bad neighborhoods. If you were living in the bad neighborhoods or you would see some downtown. Then once Northland Shopping Center was built—then you didn’t see them again. Because it was all white and Jewish.

MPS: Where? Downtown you mean?

WP: At Northland.

MPS: Oh, at Northland.

WP: Jews all fled out to Northland Shopping Center, Southfield, that area. Oak Park. Because they didn’t want to live with the blacks either. So they all went out to Southfield and around Northland Shopping Center. So that’s when I first started seeing Jewish people. And then that’s where the white ______(??).

MPS: What did you think, like when—this is sort of—let’s see, when was he—what did you think, like when Martin Luther King was assassinated? This is still part of the same question.

WP: I’m trying to remember. There were so many—the sixties were probably the most tumultuous decade of my life. It started out so great. There was a great deal of optimism. Kennedy was president. He had a glamorous wife. Their children rode ponies around the White House lawn. They threw elegant parties. It was—the first three years, everything was wonderful. The dowdy Eisenhower’s, baby with their bangs. They were out of the White House. It was a time of hope, of renewal. Everything was possible. Things were changing. And then everything started going wrong. It started with the Kennedy assassination, and you could actually feel the country change. And I don’t think just—it was everybody. The hope was gone. And there was so much sympathy for the Kennedys. Many of the programs that he wanted—which would have never have passed, by the way, would have never have gotten through congress if he hadn’t died. Like the Civil Rights Act. Because there was so much sympathy over his death, Lyndon Johnson was able to get all these things passed. The Civil Rights Act, Affirmative Action, all this stuff.

MPS: Isn’t that sad, that maybe it was like part of God’s plan or something.

WP: Maybe. But it changed everything. Because Kennedy wanted it, and no one would dare block it. And so Johnson took advantage of it and got all that stuff through. Which was really, when you look back at it now, here was a Texan, probably a very prejudiced—grew up in a very prejudiced time, much more so than even—we’re in Michigan. Grew up in the deep South. And yet he was the one that pushed all this legislation through. It still boggles my mind that it happened.

MPS: I know. I’ve thought of that too. I’ve often wondered what he really thought. Or maybe that is what he really thought, I don’t know.

WP: I mean, he must have really—I mean, maybe he witnessed it more than we did. Maybe he saw—I mean, we didn’t see separate drinking fountains until I saw them on TV. I didn’t know they existed. I didn’t know there were segregated swimming pools. I didn’t know there were restaurants for blacks and whites only down South. We didn’t know. We didn’t know that stuff. It wasn’t until it was on TV, and there were the riots and people were standing up, and Rosa Parks refused to get off the bus, and all that stuff, and it was on the TV and the nightly news every night. All of a sudden it was like, oh my god. I mean, this is really our country? We didn’t know about it.

MPS: Was it scary to you? I mean like, frightening I mean.

WP: I mean, we never talked about it.

MPS: Did it seem frightening?

WP: Yeah. It felt like—not that wasn’t frightening. What was frightening was that next Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, and then Martin Luther King was assassinated, and there were the riots all around—it wasn’t just Detroit. It was all around the whole country. Every major city, I think, had a riot. And it was like—you felt like, for the first time, this country isn’t going to make it. It was the closest I ever felt that our government was going to fall apart. I mean, this was the end. It just—I don’t know how to explain it but it just—too many things happened too close together, and you just didn’t see how we were going to survive. We went from all this hope to this sense of hopelessness. So when Martin Luther King was killed, it was just like, well, there’s one more. It wasn’t—Kennedy’s impact shattered me. But because it shattered me so much, when Bobby Kennedy was killed it wasn’t quite as devastating. And so when Martin Luther King was killed it wasn’t—again, it was even less devastating. Because you were starting to become immune to it. Does that make any sense?

MPS: Yeah.

WP: And then there were riots—I mean, it was just so many things going on. It was like, you go into Detroit—I remember waking up and listening to the radio and it saying there was riots in Detroit, downtown Detroit, on Twelfth Street, and no one was to go to work. You were to stay in your home. And of course my first thought was, great, I don’t have to go to work today. I was happy. [laughs] And I called my boss, and he said, “Well, I’m here, and the chairman of the board is here.” But everyone else wasn’t coming in that day. And I said, “Well, I’m not coming in!” And apparently nobody went in but my boss and the chairman of the board. But we had to go. I had to go to work the next day.

MPS: It was still going on.

WP: I know it was still going on. It was part of my work ethic. That that’s what you were supposed to do. You were supposed to, I mean—so I took a bus. I didn’t want to drive because there was shooting and everything else. I was the only person on the bus. When we got downtown they wouldn’t let us work in our building. We had to go work in another building which was owned by, at that time, Detroit Bank and Trust. And only two or three of us showed up, and all we did was sit and look out the window all day at the tanks and soldiers and the machine guns in the streets. We just sat and looked out the window all day. I mean, there were soldiers all over the streets, tanks. It was surreal. It wasn’t—it was something like you would see in a movie. There was no one around.

MPS: I cannot believe you went to work!

WP: I went to work because that’s what I did. I had to go to work.

MPS: Oh my god. So did you see anything?

WP: No because it wasn’t downtown. It was over in the bad areas where the blacks lived. Twelfth Street, that area, which they renamed Martin Luther King Boulevard.

MPS: I didn’t know that was Twelfth Street.

WP: Yeah.

MPS: Because it was at Twelfth Street and Clairmount.

WP: Right, and Clairmount. We had a branch off of there.

MPS: So where you went, it wasn’t—it was downtown, but it wasn’t—

WP: It was all over—it wasn’t quite in the downtown area. It was over a ways. I don’t know how far. A few miles.

MPS: Okay.

WP: So we never really saw any of the riots. I can remember a girl at work telling me—who lived at West Grand Boulevard. She had an apartment. A woman I worked with. She said there was shooting outside her apartment and she and her roommate laid on the floor all night because they were afraid of the gunshots. They were afraid to get shot through a window. So they didn’t even lay in bed. They laid on the floor. Of course, there were fires. Whole streets were destroyed. On TV you would see the flames. Buildings on fire. I don’t know how many people were killed. Uncle Jordy was involved in it, I mean, down there, fighting it. Fighting the rioters.

MPS: Oh, right, because he was a police officer at the time.

WP: Yeah, he was a police officer.

MPS: Wow.

WP: And that was one of the reasons that made him so prejudiced. Until the day he died he was very prejudiced, and that was one of the things, was the riots. Because of what he saw. Looting, smashing store windows and stealing stuff. How many people were killed? I don’t remember.

MPS: It was forty-seven.

WP: Okay. I don’t remember.

MPS: I mean, I just know that because I just did it with my class.

WP: It was probably three or four days before most people went back to work. But I remember being the only person on the bus going to work. Me and the bus driver.

MPS: Oh my god, I can’t believe you did that.

WP: Oh, yeah. So your answer to Martin Luther King—it means more to me now than it did to me then. We were—I think we were sort of shell-shocked by the time that happened. Too many things had happened.

MPS: I just read—well, I didn’t read it because I listened to it on tape—it’s supposed to be an autobiography but really he didn’t write the book so I don’t know how they can call it an autobiography but it is his writings and his notes and then they had—his wife had someone put it together in a book. And the cool thing was because I listened to it on tape is when they’re reading the speeches, it’s actually him giving the speeches. So there’s somebody else reading the book but they had the real—they were taped, most of his speeches were taped. And so it was just so cool. I listened to that this year before I taught about Martin Luther King. I’m like, okay, I’ve got to bone up on this. But it was just really fascinating to listen to him speak. He was a great speaker.

WP: I know, he was. And yet I don’t think it was as appreciated at the time as it is now because there was still too much prejudice in the country at that time. He was probably thought of by whites more like they think of Jessie Jackson now. Not a whole lot of respect. But blacks, of course, loved him. I’m not saying that’s true of all whites but I think it was a huge segment of the population. Of course, there’s a huge segment now that’s still saying—

MPS: Right.

WP: But did he have the respect he has now? No.

MPS: This isn’t actually on my question sheet but I wanted to ask you anyway. Because he was so different than Martin Luther King, what did you think of Malcolm X?

WP: That he was just a terrible person, a rabble rouser. I don’t know how he’s—you’d compare him to the American Nazi party or something like that. You had the same feelings about them. The Black Panthers. That they were just no-good evil people. If you thought about them at all. I mean, you would never hear anything good about them. Nothing. You just—there was just nothing.

MPS: Okay.

WP: The news was also very biased at that time.

MPS: If you ever get a chance, you actually should read his book. His is also an autobiography, but Alex Haley wrote it, but Malcolm X asked him to write it and so they conferred on it. So everything in there was—you know, it’s his autobiography as told to Alex Haley. It is fascinating. I mean, from what I read—I read the whole book and then I’ve read other things on him too—and he was a rabble rouser, and he was up to no good, but it’s just interesting. Have you seen the movie Malcolm X?

WP: I think so, yeah.

MPS: Well, it’s very close to the movie. I mean, just his whole—I mean, just by way of explanation rather than excuse. You know, if you look at his life growing up, it was horrid! I mean, his family was really a victim of prejudice. His father was murdered. His house set on fire more than once by white supremacists. His mother cheated out of her insurance money. They said the father committed suicide. They bashed him in the back of the head and laid him on the railroad tracks and then they wouldn’t pay the insurance policy. And I think there were eight kids. [phone beeps] Oh, you know what dad, hold on one second, because Shawn will not—if I don’t answer this, she’ll keep calling. Hold on one second. Hello?

Shawn: Hey it’s me.

MPS: Hi.

[break in tape.]

MPS: Okay. Shawn got lost, she’s supposed to be coming to our house and she missed our exit, and she’s like, “Okay, I went flying past your exit, how do I get to your house.”

Anyway, just if you—really, it is a very fascinating read about his early life, and then his whole tie-in to the Black Muslim Movement. And actually right before he’s assassinated—he is assassinated by members of the—they think—of the Black Muslim Movement. And he actually—partly because he broke with them when he realized that a lot of what they were preaching was not accurate to Muslim religion in general, to the Quran and the Muslim religion. And then he went and made a pilgrimage to Mecca and while he was there he said it really changed his—the unfortunate thing is he’s assassinated shortly after he goes to Mecca but he said it really changed his perception because he really looked at white people as the white devil. And he realized that there were—you know, when he goes to Mecca and there’s people of all different colors and they treat him the same. They treat him as they would treat anybody else. Then he realized not all white people are bad. But his whole life experience had told him all white people were bad. And so it’s just interesting. It’s a really, really good book if you ever get the chance to read it. And it’s just his autobiography, Malcolm X. But anyway, I was just wondering what you thought. Because the only thing I ever remember is just hearing bad stuff about Malcolm X.

WP: Right. Me too.

MPS: Okay. Let me see, where am I? Is there anything else you want to say about the riots before I go on?

WP: It was the end of Detroit, as far as I’m—it was the beginning of the end. There was always hope that everyone thought—actually up until I left, there would be periods of renewal and new buildings and the hope that the city would revive, and it never has and I don’t know if it ever will. It certainly will never be the city I remember. It used to be the fifth largest city in the United States. I don’t know what it is now but its way down there. And like I said, it won the cleanest city award. I don’t think anybody would believe that now. The beautiful trees and the houses. It was just a bustling metropolis that’s not there anymore. It’s gone. I mean, there’s people now who live out in the suburbs, probably have never even been in the city.

MPS: Actually, there was an article in today’s paper on Hartland, which is right next door to me. Where Tracey lives, and Kelly. And it was about people—and they call it, instead of suburbs, ex-urbia—and about people leaving the suburbs to move out to ex-urbia, like the country, quote unquote, and how different it is. And a lot of these people had lived in Detroit but they’re talking about how they moved out here and they’re meeting people who have never been to Detroit, who are afraid to go to Detroit, and it just boggles their mind, but at the same time they become part of this community, is sort of what the article was—I mean, it was just interviews with all these people.

[End Disk 1 Track 2]

[Begin Disk 2 Track 1]

MPS: It was just interesting, you know, in how now their kids are sort of like—don’t want to go back into the city and stuff, you know?

WP: What’s amazing is that I worked in downtown Detroit, or within a few miles, at the medical center, from 1965 until I retired in—what was it?—19—

MPS: No, dad, it’s 2005. How long have you been retired?

WP: Okay, 2000. So from ‘65 to 2000, I worked either right in downtown or within a few miles. Actually, the Detroit Medical Center when I first went there was a much worse area than downtown. I never had one single incident in all those years. Nothing. Nothing ever happened. Not even close to an incident. Until I went outside of downtown. I mean, I was in four hold-ups but they were in branches that were in other neighborhoods. I was in a bank when they were held up.

MPS: I know. I love those stories. You know what? Someday I want you to tell me those stories but I can’t put that as part of this thing that I’m doing.

WP: Well, as far as working downtown, nothing ever happened. Nothing. Working at Detroit Medical Center, nothing ever happened. Never bothered. Nothing. And yet people were afraid to go there.

MPS: I know.

WP: And that was a period of, what _______(??)

MPS: 35?

WP: 35 years. Everyday. Year to year.

MPS: Yup. Okay. Where am I. Question number eight—we’re almost done.

WP: Let me go back just a little bit.

MPS: Okay.

WP: It was—prejudice was perfectly acceptable back then. And to say I wasn’t prejudiced would not be true because we were brought up to be prejudiced. Everybody was—I mean, that’s just the way it was. Why would a black person want to live in a white person’s neighborhood and ruin their neighborhood? We just couldn’t understand it. Why would they want to come in and ruin our neighborhood? Why would they want to live with us? Because we don’t want them to live with us. So why would they want to live there? We just couldn’t understand that. And really, my own attitudes didn’t begin to change until, like I said, in the sixties when we were following what was going on down south. It wasn’t what was going on in my own city. It was what we saw going on down south. I mean, they were so far out of line that it was just disgusting. So it was a gradual thing, where I became more tolerant. To say I was always tolerant—no. We just couldn’t understand why they’d want to live with us. Hope they knew they’d ruin our neighborhood, which wasn’t true either. Because they kept their houses up very good. I mean, even better because they thought they had to prove that they were good enough to live there, so they kept their houses up better than a white person in many cases, probably most cases. Because they had to prove that they were good enough to live there. But it didn’t matter. You would have to get out before your property values went down, and they did go down. Once the first black family moved in your property values went down. So you can’t—it wasn’t all prejudice. It was also financial issues involved there too. When you saw the value of your home declining that you spent your whole life working for, you had to get out while the getting-out was good. And houses declined in value substantially. I don’t think that happens anymore. But it did happen then.

MPS: I think one of the—one of the more—what is the word I’m looking for?—one of the more significant things that you guys ever did for—in terms of my personal beliefs in racism was when we—now, I was little, but it really had a significant—when you guys took Trina. You know, I mean, we never saw black people before that either. But I only remember it being an issue—I mean, it wasn’t because she was—I remember it being an issue because of grandpa, because he was so hateful.

WP: But he was typical.

MPS: I know.

WP: Although grandma, I’ll give her credit, she never said a word. And grandma would love to be prejudiced, and she never said—she would hold her, she would play with her. But we lived in Dearborn Heights, and I can remember—we lived on a corner—cars coming to a screech and stopping when they saw her on the lawn because they thought blacks had moved into the neighborhood.

MPS: I don’t remember that at all.

WP: Oh, yeah. And if I wasn’t with your mother people were giving her dirty looks if she had Trina because they thought she was married to a black person.

MPS: Well, the thing is, what I remember is I just was—I don’t know, like—I don’t know if I was then, I think that I was because this is the way that I feel, but I remember being proud of you guys for—because he was so prejudiced, and I remember being proud that you were like, “If she can’t come in the house, none of us are coming in the house.” And I mean, I remember that. And I was not that old. I was only, like, Carly’s age I think. I was only in first or second grade. Must have been second grade. But I mean, it was significant enough that it’s something that I still remember, and that we didn’t go over there, because—

WP: Well, it was the early seventies, so you can see the big change in my attitude even, just during the sixties.

MPS: Uh-hm.

WP: Of course, in the fifties I was a kid, so I didn’t really think about it. All I could remember was just my grandfather being so proud it was on the deed that blacks couldn’t live there. Blacks will never live in this neighborhood. I still remember that. I don’t know why that stuck to my mind. Like, why that made an impression on me. I mean, why would I care? I was under ten. But I can remember going to a restaurant, Pope’s Fish and Chips in Livonia, and of course Trina was the only black person in there. All the waitresses came over to our table to say how cute she was, and fawn over here. I guess to show—because then it was maybe more politically correct to show tolerance. But she wasn’t cute. She was _______(??)

MPS: Oh, I remember. She was not a cute baby.

WP: [laughs] So you knew that—[laughs] But it was embarrassing too, because everybody in the whole restaurant—it was so unusual to see a black person that everybody in the restaurant—you suddenly became the center of attention in this huge restaurant. And it was huge. It was a big place. And I remember all these waitresses around our table. And grandma was with us, she said, “Boy, you guys are sure getting a lot of attention.” But it was embarrassing. And you would either get one out of two attitudes. If your mother was going into a store, she either got a dirty look, or people would over-fawn over her, and say, “Oh, isn’t she cute, where did you get her from?” and that sort of thing, like to show that they weren’t prejudiced. So it was either way over the top one way or way the other. You know, prejudicial, and the other way. It was—the attitudes were sort of extreme, one way or another. There was no in between. It was just so odd, so unusual, for this white couple to have this little black child.

MPS: Okay, dad—

WP: Go ahead.

MPS: Okay. I’m skipping number eight because I already asked it. It’s, why did you leave the city?—moved to Romulus, but we already have that. So, this is more of a general question, and it’s basically—and this is during the time of—we kind of sort of talked about this but if there’s anything that you want to add, let me know. So this is during the sixties. What was life like economically, socially, etcetera? Let me read the whole question—economically, socially, etcetera. Give a context of what else was going on in your life at the time. And they’re talking specifically about the riots. Like, what else was going on in your life at the time? What worries did you have? What interests did you have? And were you surprised by the riots? It’s sort of a long catch-all question.

WP: I’ll start with was I surprised by the riots. Yeah. I don’t remember—I don’t think Detroit was the first but I still—it never occurred to me it would happen there.

MPS: I think Watts was the first.

WP: Probably, in Los Angeles. But it wasn’t—but then there were many others after Detroit. Then it was all over the country. I was still—yeah, it was a shock to me that it happened there. It just never occurred to me that it would. Because there was no warning, you know. I didn’t see any signs of tension or any more tension than usual or people being treated worse than usual. Probably because I had no contact with blacks. Although, I must have worked with blacks at the time. What else did you say? It was just a time of turmoil for me. It was a time when I really thought our country was doomed. That we wouldn’t make it. That for the first time in our history, we weren’t going to make it through that. The country was going to fall apart. Because too many major things were happening. I mean, it was one after the other. It just kept—one negative thing after another. All that hope we had in the beginning was gone.

MPS: Do you think it’s more scary than 9/11? [September 11, 2001] Or different? A different type of scare?

WP: I can’t say—9/11 was a horrible shock but I don’t feel scared by it. Maybe—I don’t know why—maybe I feel like where I live is the target. I’m more scared of what’s going to happen and I don’t think it’s what people expect. People expect another major, horrible thing, and I think it could be what could destroy the country more—and Osama Bin Laden always said his aim was to destroy the American economy which would of course destroy America. The easiest way to do it—and people say, “Oh, that won’t do it”—but it’s like what happened in London. Keep people on edge, keep these small things going constantly, until people are afraid to go places. You don’t need the World Trade Center. You don’t need major things like that to unnerve a country. People have car bombs or bus bombs or bombs going off in trains constantly. If you get people afraid to travel and afraid to go to shopping malls—I mean, that way could destroy the economy far more than the World Trade Center, or have more impact on the economy, especially when it starts happening in major cities around the country. And you see some of that starting to happen now, like in London. It’s happening in Egypt. Whereas here in America we’re more scared of the major—another World Trade Center event. And I’m more concerned about smaller incidents, a series of over and over until—you remember when those two guys, I think one of them was named Malvo [Lee Boyd Malvo], were doing those shootings and they were killing people all over? [D.C. Sniper Attacks]

MPS: Yeah, yeah.

WP: That unnerved the country, and all it took was two people and not knowing what was going to happen next, and wondering where they were going to turn up, and the country was—I mean, it was just—you were obsessed by it. You were just watching the news all the time. What’s going to happen? Where are they? Where is it going to happen next? So if they ever decide to start blowing up stuff here, I think that could do a lot to harm our economy, to harm our country, to harm our confidence.

MPS: Okay, but I got you—

WP: Another thing I worry about is an attack on one of our nuclear plants. That could kill—_______(??)

MPS: Millions.

WP: If not immediately, years down the road with the affects of radiation. That concerns me. Because I don’t think we’ve done anything—we’re so tied up in Iraq right now that not nearly enough attention is being paid to preventing further terror attacks. We’re not prepared at all, as far as I’m concerned.

MPS: Okay. I got you totally off topic because I’m not supposed to be talking about 9/11.

WP: Oh, okay.

MPS: I’m supposed to be talking about Detroit and the riots. So the other part of the question was, what else was going on in your life at the time? What worries did you have? Interests that you had during the time of the riots. They want to put it in an economic, social context, to say, you know, what was your life as an average white person living in Detroit—they’re just trying to get—

WP: Well, I can’t figure out. Now I’m trying to—we must have just—no, it was in ‘67 wasn’t it? The riots?

MPS: Yeah, I think we were still living in Detroit at that time. We didn’t move until I was a couple years old.

WP: Now, I’m trying to figure out why I was at grandma’s attic sleeping when I woke up that morning. And I’m wondering if it’s when your mother went to Czechoslovakia.

MPS: No, because she went to Czechoslovakia in the seventies. Like, ‘72. Because I remember it.

WP: Well why was I at grandma’s? Unless my memory’s faulty and it wasn’t—but that’s what I seem to remember. Waking up with my alarm and hearing the radio go off and talking about not going into Detroit that day. And in ‘67 I was married.

MPS: Yeah, you got married in ‘63.

WP: I was married for four years. So, you and Cheryl were both there. Unless we were in between moves? It could be when we moved into a house in Romulus. So, we lived with grandma for a while. The house on Plainview sold the day we put it up for sale, it sold that day. That is it. The house on Plainview, we put the for sale sign—a lady was driving by who lived down in one of the older neighborhoods, and she was scared. She’d heard rumblings that something was going to happen. And she bought our house. She wanted to move in within a week. She wanted to get out of her neighborhood and she was prepared to give us cash for it. And I said, “We can’t turn this down.” So we agreed to move out within a week.

MPS: Oh my god!

WP: In fact, it was less than a week, I think. She might have bought it on Tuesday. We would be out by Friday or Saturday. But we had no place to go. So we moved our furniture to Grandma Beale’s garage and your mother and I went to grandma’s house with the kids. And that’s why I woke up in the attic. We were staying with Grandma Pattinson at the time.

MPS: That is a great story! I can’t believe you never told me that!

WP: Huh?

MPS: I said that’s a great story!

WP: It just came to me now. Why was I there? I was trying to remember, why would I be there? But that’s—I remember now, the lady buying the house. That’s the reason she bought the house. She was scared something was going to happen and she wanted to get out. Plus she could walk to St. Thomas Aquinas. She wanted a place where she could walk to church, and St. Thomas Aquinas was at the corner. She could walk there. But she wanted to get out of her old Polish neighborhood. So apparently there were rumblings that something was going to happen. Or maybe because of riots in other cities, she thought about it. But we weren’t thinking about it. We were thinking, we just go this money, we’re buying a house. That’s what I was—things were going fine for us. It was more immediate, daily living things. We weren’t thinking about riots or—we had sold the house in one day, we had all this money, we were buying a new house, we were all excited about that. Picking out the carpeting, picking out the brick, picking out this, picking out that. It was just daily living. It wasn’t—I think we were oblivious to what was really going on around us. Because we were just living our own daily life. It wasn’t—we weren’t living in fear or even concerned about it.

MPS: So economically, what was going on for you? Good, then, right?

WP: Yeah. I mean, I did—what was I, in ‘67? I was an auditor.

MPS: At Detroit Bank and Trust?

WP: At Detroit Bank and Trust. Branch auditor. Maybe I was working downtown by then. Otherwise I had to transfer downtown by then. But we were doing fine. We were buying a new house, I didn’t know if we could make the payments, but yeah. Economically we were doing okay. We weren’t afraid of anything happening. We were excited about moving. For us it was—at last that particular time was great. Not talking about ‘63 when Kennedy was assassinated. Not talking about when Bobby was assassinated. Not talking about Martin Luther King. But at that particular moment of the riots, things were going great for us. I mean, we had other things on our mind. How are we going to put our furniture? How are we going to move? How is all this going to come together? So it was immediate living things that we were concerned with, not what was going on in the world at that particular time.

So the riots were a total shock to us. Even the lady who wanted to get out of her neighborhood didn’t alarm us. It didn’t hit us until the riots happened, like, oh my god, she was right. And I can remember at the time, Jenny Dishowitz(??) saying—I mean, everybody was petrified then, and there were all these rumors going around, and Jenny Dishowitz(??) saying, “The blacks are coming down Warren, they’ll be up here pretty soon!” [laughs] “The rioters are coming, they’re going to be—” And she was petrified, she believed it, she was petrified. I remember the rumors. _______(??) And I discounted it. It’s probably because I went to work that day. [laughs] I didn’t see anything, anybody marching down Woodward. But that was the first thing, when there were all those rumors going around that they were coming our way.

MPS: So basically, what else was going on in your lifetime? You were married. You had two little kids. Did you have any worries?

WP: Just minor financial worries. How we were going to make the house payments. Nothing major, no.

MPS: Did you actually join in any of the civil rights stuff, or no?

WP: No.

MPS: Okay. The only other question I have is—I’m supposed to ask you if there are any other issues you want to talk about, or did you expect a question I did not ask? And then the last thing is, is your perception of what happened then different from now? And they’re referring specifically to the riot. I mean, perception of what was going on at the time, is it different than how you feel about it now, and then the other stuff is—you know, any other questions—

WP: Well, one thing is—I mean, it accelerated the—I don’t know if destruction is the right word, but the ruin of Detroit. I mean, Detroit never recovered. It was like the last—although nobody knew it at the time. As I look back, I realize that was the final nail in the coffin of the city. It never did recover. People thought it would, and kept hoping it would, but it never did. That’s when people really started to flee in droves, and it never changed after that.

But it also made people pay attention to blacks, and they started getting better jobs, and started being able to live where they wanted to live, and it changed their lives dramatically. Whites avoided the change by moving, by fleeing. The blacks suddenly could get good jobs and have a more middle-class life than what was possible for them before.

It’s also for them though—you don’t see this really anywhere but for a while a lot of blacks had an attitude because the only way they got their rights was by rebelling. Many of them felt that they would have a chip on their shoulder and an attitude at work. Where they could do whatever they wanted and you couldn’t do anything to them. You didn’t dare discipline them. Supervisors were afraid to discipline and it became almost impossible to fire a black person. No matter how incompetent they were. I don’t think—maybe the last ten years I worked or more I don’t remember seeing that. But for a long time it was like that. But it’s because it was the only way they ever got anything was by rebellion. By fighting back. You didn’t get anything by being nice. Does that make sense?

MPS: Uh-hm.

WP: You didn’t get anywhere. And probably some of it was an inferiority complex. _______(??) And they probably saw many incompetent white people over the years who got promoted and got raises, did this and that and didn’t get fired, nothing was done. Years of resentment of seeing that. _______(??) So it was a whole change in attitude. One, whites had to accept them in the workplace, because they weren’t there before, unless it was a menial job. Now suddenly they were working right next to you, with you. Same job. So it was—now what you would consider normal, wouldn’t think twice about it, at that time it was very unusual and very—I mean, it was awkward. Neither side knew how to handle it. I do remember supervisors being afraid to discipline a black person. And I can remember being a supervisor, the first time I had one, he was incompetent. I had to document—I mean, every time, I had pages of pages of pages of documentation before I could do anything. But I got rid of him. Not because he was black, but because he was incompetent. But it was very difficult. And because he took advantage of that. He thought nobody could touch him because he was black. So there was a change in attitude on their part too. So it wasn’t all—white people weren’t all wrong and black people weren’t all right.

And even now, my attitudes are still evolving. When I hear the word—when I hear blacks talk about reparations it used to irritate the heck out of me. Why would—I mean they weren’t theslaves. But as I look back now and see what it did to the people and the culture, generation after generation, I understand where they’re coming from. And maybe because I’m gay I understand that a little—I understand that. I understand what prejudice can do to you, and how it can be so subtle that sometimes other people don’t even see it, but if you’re black of if you’re gay, you do see it because you hear it every day. And if you’re not one of that group, you don’t hear it, you don’t see it. So I understand what they mean.

I tell you, if I was black, I’d be furious. I would just be furious. To be treated like, especially down south, like an animal. I couldn’t drink out of a white drinking fountain, I couldn’t eat in a restaurant where whites ate, I couldn’t go to the park, for black people I had to sit in the back of the bus. But they were allowed to sit in the white section if there were the seats available, which I wasn’t aware of, until I saw a special on Rosa Parks. And I always—let’s see, how did this work?—she was in the black section of the bus, but there was a white person who got on the bus, and there were no seats available, and of course if a white person got on the bus then some of the black seats became white seats, which I wasn’t aware of. And they wanted her to give up her seat in the black section of the bus, and that’s when she refused to do it.

MPS: Actually what I read is she was in the middle section, which both sides could sit on.

WP: It was so—yeah.

MPS: Have you ever—have you been on the bus? The bus is at Greenfield Village, the actual bus that she was on. It’s small. It’s not like today’s city buses—well, you haven’t been on a city bus in a while—but it’s not like today’s city buses. It’s a small bus. I mean, smaller than a school bus-bus and so there weren’t that many rows of seats. There really weren’t. And she wasn’t the only black person in that section, there were four people. All four refused to give up their seat until the bus driver—

WP: I didn’t know that. But did you know, the same thing happened to her ten years before, and she was thrown off the bus.

MPS: Oh, really?

WP: And what was strange about it is that—

[End Disk 2 Track 1]

[Begin Disk 2 Track 2]

MPS: He talked to them, and none of them would move, and then he’s like, “You’re going to get thrown off the bus, I’m going to,” you know, whatever, “if you don’t move.” The other three gave in, she was the only one not to give in. That’s what it was. So anyway.

WP: When they started the boycott of the buses, at first it was a joke. The word spread in the black community not to ride the buses, at the boycott. And first they laughed about it, and it took a whole year before they changed the law, before they finally gave in, because they had lost so much money. Because black people for a year refused to ride the buses, and they walked. They walked to work, no matter how far it was. I mean, they would walk miles and miles to work instead of riding the bus. But it took the city a year to give in. I think it was Memphis. I’m not sure. I think it was Memphis. No, was it—

MPS: Montgomery. Montgomery.

WP: Montgomery, Alabama?

MPS: Yeah.

WP: So it wasn’t an instantaneous thing. I mean, it was _______(??) When you saw the people, saw the fire hoses on TV and the dogs and stuff like that, that began to change attitudes. People, even if they were prejudiced, they said, you know, that’s not right.

WP: But there’s still a lot of that prejudice down there—down here. There’s still a lot of it.

MPS: You see it now?

WP: I’m in a very liberal part of Florida but there is still a lot of it in Mississippi and Alabama. It’s not that they can’t—I mean, they don’t have separate pools or separate restaurants but there’s still a great deal of prejudice.

MPS: Alright dad.

WP: Aright.

MPS: This was fun. I’m glad we did this. This was very, very interesting to me. I didn’t actually think we were going to take an hour and a half, but we have. Actually, I think we went just a tad bit over our time, because I went through—

WP: Well I’m sure there’s some you’ll have to cut out anyway.

MPS: Oh, yeah. Well, she just said that after an hour and a half you start losing the person—

WP: Well, by repeating.

MPS: Yeah. And she said, you know, they get tired, you get tired, and try to limit to an hour and a half. But I didn’t think—I’m not going to talk an hour and a half. Actually, you know, I’m not going to listen an hour and a half. [laughs] I didn’t think you’d say that much. But it was great, this was so cool. I want to do this with other stuff.

WP: Well, I think the most interesting thing is—not the most interesting—but one of the interesting things is the role for men and women, how it’s changed. I don’t think you could even imagine what it was like. Where there was such a separation. When I think about it now, even a man to go grocery shopping would be considered effeminate. I mean, it’s just—and now it’s just so taken for granted, and yet it was—you would have been just looked at like, you’re queer, you’re a faggot, you’re in a grocery store, doing a woman’s job. A man would never help with the housework, or—I mean, that would—he would never. Or help with the kids. Change a diaper. A man would never do that. It was not what men—men didn’t do that. They went to work. They supported their families. That was their role. That was their job. And discipline their children. They took care of their wife and family. That was their role, that was their job, and because they did that they were entitled to do whatever else they wanted to do. They wanted to go out after work and drink at the bars and stay out all night. That was fine. They could do that. That was a man’s role. They were entitled to that. A man beat his wife, well, that’s his wife. He’s entitled. He can beat her. You just can’t imagine now. My mother did not know how much money my father made. It was none of her business.

MPS: You’re kidding!

WP: No. He gave her so much money, the rest was his, and he could spend it any way he wanted.

MPS: Is that why she’s so funny about money?

WP: I don’t know. But it was typical, that wasn’t—I mean, she didn’t think _______(??). That was just—I mean, that’s just the way it was. She had food, he gave her money for food, groceries, stuff. Which is why she didn’t know how much money he made. I mean, men had it pretty good. [laughs]

MPS: Yeah. [laughs]

WP: But also, women didn’t work outside the home, so, I mean, that was there—there were still a few days a week when my mother, we would go visiting, and we probably walked. Because, I mean, we would walk as kids four or five miles to different aunt’s houses. My sister and I—I can remember being in a baby buggy, me and Casey, and going to my aunt’s house. I can still somehow remember that, how I could fit in a buggy. I must have been three, four at the most. The very most.

MPS: Grandma pushing you.

WP: But we would walk. My Aunt Bonnie lived like a mile and a half away, our Aunt Aggie lived like three miles away. We would go there. There would probably be a couple days a week when my mother—it wasn’t cleaning day, it wasn’t ironing day, it wasn’t washing day, it wasn’t grocery shopping day. So she could go visit her sisters. And we probably walked there. We didn’t drive a car. My dad would probably be at work. I don’t think he would have driven her anyway.

MPS: I can’t believe all those years, grandma got rides to work every day.

WP: What do you mean rides?

MPS: When she worked in Plymouth.

WP: She had to take three buses most of the time.

MPS: Oh, yeah, that’s right. Well, she would get rides from some guy sometimes.

WP: Sometimes. But most of the time she took three buses to get to work. She started seven thirty. I think she started out at around five or something. She didn’t have any easy life.

MPS: Uh uh.

WP: Hard work in a factory, I mean, it was hard. I don’t know how she did it until she was sixty-five.

MPS: Well, this really was very cool. I’m so glad I decided to interview you, because I could have picked anyone. I just had to pick somebody that lived in Detroit, you know, and during this time period that we’re studying. It’s mostly the fifties and sixties, what we’re looking at. What was life-like. And a lot of that is the gender roles we’re looking at. And then we’re also looking at the civil rights movement, and then up through the riots, so.

WP: Well, one thing that’s interesting about Detroit is it—I mean, Northland was the first mall in the nation like that. Major mall. Kmart—it was the first Kmart in the nation, was Michigan. The first freeway in the nation was the Davison which was in Detroit. In the whole nation, in the whole United States, the first one was the Davison Freeway, which only was about three or four miles long. But that was so unique, such an innovation, a street with no lights where you could just go without stopping and now it’s so common. There was no interstate highway system. Eisenhower started the—all the highways, you know, the highways you have across the nation. Before that it was just little roads. Little highways or little two-lane highways or little roads. It took forever to go anywhere. So people didn’t travel like that do now.

[beeping noises]

MPS: Oh!

[phone ringing]

WP: Yeah.

MPS: Sorry, I cut you off, I accidentally hit the button on the phone. I’m like, oh! Get down Blue.

WP: But I can remember driving to Akron Ohio with my father and my mother, and we would go—you had to go through all these small towns. It would take like seven or eight hours. Now you can get there in three. But it was just stop and go, all the way, for all the way down to Ohio. Nobody would have thought of driving cross-country or to Florida.

MPS: Yeah, to Florida. [laughs]

WP: You didn’t have the highways like you do now. There were no major highways, turnpikes, freeways, nothing. It was just these local two-lane roads. It’s the fifties now that I’m talking about.

MPS: Yeah.

WP: And Eisenhower’s the one that authorized the building of the freeways going across the United States, east to west, north to south. But it took years and years and years to build them. And he was president from ‘52 to—Kennedy was—no, into the sixties. And that’s when he started building the highway system that we have now.

MPS: Did you vote for Kennedy?

WP: That’s another thing I hadn’t thought about, there wasn’t the transportation that there is now. Especially when they couldn’t build cars. I mean, during the war years, they couldn’t build cars because they needed the steel for tanks. So my father bought one of the first cars after the war ended.

MPS: I can’t include this in our thing, but I just wanted to tell you this, I was reading this stuff this morning or yesterday or something and—actually within the last week, whatever—I was reading this stuff and it was talking about how—just something that you said reminded me of it, actually earlier when you were talking about—let me go back and look—how blacks then could move so they could get better jobs, better living spaces. It changed their lives dramatically. Blacks could get good jobs, middle-class life more possible. One of the things that they talk about—but you also talked about it being the end of the city—these articles that I was reading were talking about how, with white flight in the suburbs, what also happened is that the jobs started moving out of the city as well. So even though the blacks are living now where they want to in the city, they don’t have the transportation because many of them didn’t have good enough jobs to afford cars.

WP: Right. And that’s intentional by the companies because that was their way of keeping blacks from working for them. Move their plants out of the city, out to the suburbs, where the blacks couldn’t go. And then they could still have their white workers and yet they were abiding by the law. Chrysler’s main plant used to be down in Highland Park, Michigan and they moved up to Auburn Hills. Their headquarters there. That was common. Well, end of story.

MPS: Okay, I’m going to turn my recorder off.

WP: Okay.

MPS: Hold on.

[END OF DISCK 2 TRACK 2]

[TIME STAMP END OF INTERVIEW: 01:46:26]

Original Format

Audio

Duration

Title

LeeRoy Johnson, August 8th, 2016

Description

In this interview, Johnson discusses the racial transition of his neighborhood in the Near East Side in the 1950s and 1960s. He recalls being chased and beaten up by white children on the west side of Chene Street. During the disturbance, Johnson and his friends looted in order to “get things that we didn’t have” and later to make money; he narrowly escaped Army gunshots when he sold liquor he had looted past curfew. However, he condemns the arson and shootings that took place. With some ambiguity, Johnson asserts that there was, “nothing racial about the riot.” Johnson also mentions the lack of available food, his inability to drive to work due to the Eight Mile blockade, Malcolm X, the Algiers Motel Incident, and H. Rap Brown.

Publisher

Detroit Historical Society

Date

08/19/2016

Rights

Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI

Format

audio/WAV

Language

en-US

Type

Oral History

Video

Narrator/Interviewee's Name

LeeRoy Johnson

Brief Biography

Lee Roy Johnson was born September 4, 1948 in Detroit Michigan. He grew up in the Near East Side, where he lived during the 1967 disturbance. Johnson briefly worked for Chrysler Motor Company in Warren, Michigan, and later for the John Hancock Insurance Company. Johnson thinks of the looting that occurred during what he terms a “riot” as an “opportunity.”

Interviewer's Name

William Winkel

Interview Place

Detroit, MI

Date

08/08/2016

Interview Length

00:43:12

Transcriptionist

Emma Maniere

Transcription Date

08/17/2016

Transcription

WW: Hello. Today is August 5, 2016, my name is William Winkel. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society’s Detroit ’67 Oral History Project. I’m in Detroit, Michigan. I’m sitting down Mr. Lee Roy Johnson. Thank you for sitting down with me today, sir.

LRJ: Thank you.

WW: Can you please tell me where and when were you born?

LRJ: Born in Detroit, Michigan. September 4, 1948, Labor Day.

WW: And you were born in Detroit?

LRJ: In Detroit.

WW: Did you grow up in the city?

LRJ: Yes I did.

WW: What neighborhood did you grow up in?

LRJ: The near East Side, which consists of streets, on Theodore Street, which is near Warren and Chene.

WW: Was the neighborhood integrated or mostly black?

LRJ: Mostly black.

WW: What was the composition of the neighborhood? Were there older Detroit families, or were there recent immigrants to the city?

LRJ: They were older Detroit families. I can say that.

WW: Was the neighborhood close-knit?

LRJ: Yes, very much so.

WW: Are there any experiences you’d like to share from growing up in that neighborhood?

LRJ: Yeah. I wanted to tell my experience about when the Detroit Riot–

WW: Before that–growing up.

LRJ: Growing up. Well, no, not really. I had a normal childhood through school.

WW: What schools did you go to?

LRJ: I went to Ferry Elementary School, which was, at the time, it was mostly white, Ferry Elementary. From there I went to [unintelligible] Junior High, which was another school on Moran Street. That was mostly integrated, basically Black. Then, Northeastern was the high school, which was mostly Black.

WW: Did you sense any tension while you were going to school?

LRJ: Yeah, there was a lot of racial tensions going on. During elementary and junior high for a while we used to get chased home because on the east side of Chene, all the white boys still lived. We lived on the west side of Chene. If we were caught on the east side of Chene, we were beat up by the white boys. So we found ourselves running home across Chene to get home almost every day. Those were guys, it was a placed called Tom’s Lunch, right there on Chene and Frederick, where there was the motorcycle gang stayed at this restaurant every day, all the motorcycles was parked out there with leather jackets. So if you were caught over there, you would get something you wouldn’t like. So we avoided that area, going to school and coming home, and even after school. That went on ’til I got almost to high school. The place closed up and the motorcycle gang moved to another area, or whatever, but they weren’t there anymore.

WW: Did you face racial views like that throughout the city growing up?

LRJ: Yeah, it was like that throughout the city, that’s for sure. Yeah. No matter where you went. Yeah, Detroit was very racial.

WW: Growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, did you sense any growing tension throughout the city? You spoke to the tension you faced in elementary school, middle school, did it keep growing?

LRJ: Yeah, it continued to grow to a certain extent. And as I said, as I got older, the areas that I was going, like school, swimming, places like that was mostly all blacks then. So I didn’t have to deal with the white tension, white people who didn’t want us nowhere around, and I didn’t have to run and be chased home or something because they had moved out of the neighborhood. Basically I guess in a high-class area, because our area was considered slum after they moved out. So, yeah, it changed.

WW: Growing up in the 1960s, did you become attached to any of the civil rights movements that were going on–say like Dr. King or Malcolm X?

LRJ: No, that was all stuff that we saw on television. We liked it, we agreed to it, to the things they were saying, but no, there were no Malcolm X. There were a few people, like two blocks away, on Frederick and St. Aubin, from where I lived is where Malcolm X’s wife lived. We used to see Malcolm X walking down St. Aubin on his way to her house, two or three times a week he’d be walking down this street on his way to her house. We knew him, Red, as we called him, and her brother was in my grade. She was a real dark complexion girl, and her brother was too–the whole family–the Burkes family, that was their name. Arthur Burkes was my age. Malcolm X’s wife was like three, four years older than us, but her brother was my age, and we used to see Malcolm X walk down St. Aubin to go see his future wife. We used to see him two, three times a week. We knew who he was, he was a Muslim in the black movement, at that time. But all we would do is say “Hi,” and he’d speak to all us little boys and keep going. That’s what we was to him. That’s as far as it went. We didn’t join or ask to join or anything. We didn’t follow him down the street, he was just another person that we knew. Had the freckles on his face, real high yellow light-skin guy, red hair, that was Malcolm X. I knew him, I’ll never forget his face, I can picture his face now. On his way to see–she was his girlfriend then. They stayed on Frederick and St. Aubin. I went to school with her brother, high school, and junior high school, because he was in my grade. His sister, I used to see her every now and then, the future wife of Malcolm X, so that’s as far as it went. We saw him and that was it.

WW: Were you still living in that neighborhood in 1967?

LRJ: Yes.

WW: How did you first hear what was going on?

LRJ: Well, I had just graduated from high school. In 1966 I graduated. I got a job at Chrysler, which was Mack Stamping Plant on Mack Street up near St. Jean or something. They allowed me to work 89 days and laid me off. We was so mad we threw bricks, broke windows out that night. That was about March of ’67, I was unemployed. So that going into the summer, about three-four months went by, I think it was June, Chrysler called me back to work at Sterling Stamping Plant—15 Mile and Mound Road. The 75 Freeway wasn’t open then, we used to have to take Van Dyke all the way out to 15 Mile and Mound. Van Dyke, the street. Right. After going back to work, and coming back to work, I found my long-lost father who I convinced to co-sign for me a car. I picked out this Buick, a drop-top deuce and a quarter, which was an electric 225. I had with the drop-top, which was the thing back then. I got the car about two and half weeks, the last of June, first of July, something like that. I think the riot broke out like the second week in July, I think, third week. Okay. I’m just going by memory here. So I had been working two to three weeks, driving to work for the first time, because I had a car. One Sunday afternoon, these girls we knew, we were all sitting at this white lady—who lived in our neighborhood, who was a good friend of my mother’s—we’re sitting in her background on these big park benches, me and about six or seven guys in the neighborhoods, just sitting there, when these three girls who stayed on the west side who we had met when we’d go dancing, they came over and they say, “They’re rioting on the west side.” We say, “What?” And she said, “If you don’t believe me, turn around and look.” And we turned around and looked west, and all you could see was smoke. She say, “Come on! Come on! Come on!” So everybody, I had the top dropped, and all five of my friends plus the three girls, we all crowded in my car, and we rode down Warren to 12th, and we rode down 12th Street and we saw the destruction that was going on on 12th. And we saw people running in and out of stores, they was turning over. They were wild on 12th Street, and I’m saying, “What’s going on?” People were coming out of businesses, the pawn shops, everything, with all kind of items, they had just go in there and take it, the police standing there don’t even try to stop ’em.

So we started looting. We were putting stuff in the car, we didn’t have much room. But anyway, we got rid of the girls, and we came back. We continued to loot up and down 12th all the way to Davison, because further down 12th, the Jews owned all the businesses up and down 12th at that time. 12th had a lot of stores and we were going, running in and out, in and out, stacking the merchandise in my car in the trunk, inside because the top was let down, we’d ride back down—Forest was the one-way street then—back down Forest to the East Side and dump the stuff off. That was that Sunday.

The next day was Monday. We hit Woodward, and we went toward downtown on Woodward. The stores–Hughes and Hatcher, Meyers Jewelry–all that, we hit those stores. I had a bag of jewelry, a little brown paper bag, full with diamond rings. Maybe about forty diamond rings was in this little bag I had, which I gave away. Everybody in my family and friends had a new diamond ring. I had shoes, some were mismatch, I had so many pairs of shoes. Suits, some was too big, I just grabbed suits off the rack. A couple of times, as I was coming out of these stores, I met the police standing there, and honest to God they did nothing because it was like fifty people running in and out and we would’ve overwhelmed the police anyway. So the police didn’t even say nothing to us; they stood there at the entrance of the stores on Woodward and let us in and out and loot. We were taking merchandise–underwear, socks. We come back, my car’s filled up again, we hit Chene Street–washing machines, automatic washers and dryers, couches and chairs. Hi-Fis, the long Hi-Fis was the thing out then. I was putting them across–you got me? The long stereo back then was the music or component everybody was using. They were called Hi-Fis, saying, “Man, I got a Hi-Fi,” and we were laying long Hi-Fis across, when I let the top down, across the top of my convertible, and we were riding ’em back. The liquor stores, we had cases and cases and cases of—the thing out then was Johnny Walker Red and Johnny Walker Black. Liquor, liquor, cases of liquor, in which we were selling to the after-hour joints. There were six or seven after-hour joints in just about every neighborhood that sold liquor past two o’clock at night. Anyway, this went on every day. We went on Mack and that scared me to death, when I went on Mack Street, I’ll never forget that. I went there because I had ran out of gas, and I’d seen other guys just pull the pump up, knock the thing over with, and fill their car up with gas, hang it back up and drive off, nobody paid for gas. So I did it. I filled my car up, but on Mack I hurried up and got off Mack because they were burning Mack. As the fireman was going into these buildings, there were guys shooting at the fireman. I said, “Oh, I gotta get away from here.” All you could hear was gunshots and buildings burning and the firemen was scared, they was hiding behind the fire trucks afraid they’d get shot as they were trying to put the fire out. Well, we didn’t go for that, our thing was just looting, you know, we didn’t burn anything. We did go in the bank on Grand River and Warren, and after we left out, the other people went in there and set the bank on fire, but it wasn’t us.

WW: What made you and your friends loot?

LRJ: We were poor! Everything that you wanted you could just walk in and get it. Whatever neighborhood you was in, you could just walk in and take it. Nobody to stop you. It was crazy, I’d never saw anything like this. If you wanted a shirt or a suit or a pair of shoes, it was there for the grabbing—just go in and grab your size and walk out. Except I was grabbing boxes of shoes and racks of suits.

WW: As you and your friends were going around the city looting, what was the atmosphere like?

LRJ: I seen stuff I could never … people and this I can dispute—people called it a racial—it was nothing racial about the riot. Nothing, you hear me? I was running down the alleys with white women and men who had washing machines on their back from the good housekeeping shops. They was stealing the miniature washers and dryers and they were looting as well as we were. So it was nothing racial about this. Everybody was just—everybody, all creed and color—were looting. We wasn’t fighting the white man about this, not at all. Like I say, they lied when they say this was a race riot, no it was not a race riot. I can contest to that. Because I looted and right next to me would be a white man taking just as much as me.

WW: Were you surprised when the Detroit Police Department didn’t stop the looters?

LRJ: Yes, very surprised.

WW: Did that encourage you to do more looting?

LRJ: Yes, it did, because I didn’t feel like I’d get caught. It was like six of us, one got caught, about the fourth day of the riot, his name was Lee Roy, just like mine. Maybe I shouldn’t use his name, I don’t know.

WW: You didn’t say his last name.

LRJ: He’s the only one of us that’s still living, but he’s in California [unintelligible]. Shouldn’t have said that.

WW: You’re fine.

LRJ: He got caught. They had those looters, all the jails was filled up, they had no room for the looters. They had ’em on busses at Belle Isle, had ’em chained, feet and hand, to each other. They were urinating and using the bathroom on the busses out at Belle Isle. They went out to Belle Isle until the courts had time to see them, which means they were maybe there two or three days before that bus was taken to the courts, in which they was given like five days’ time served. If they on Belle Isle for a week, the judge would let ’em go. All this happened in the first week. Now, I got underwear, I got socks, I got shoes, I got everything down my grandmother’s basement. I’m going in and out. She found out I had all this stuff in her basement, and my grandmother was a Christian lady, she didn’t play. She told me if I don’t get this stuff out of her basement, she was going to hang me. So now I got to find a place to put all my looting stuff. She didn’t like it, but she know I had stole this stuff, you couldn’t fool old people. Now we’re into the second week. This only lasted two weeks. The looting itself lasted a week, they brought in the National Guard in the second week. They put the National Guard, they were on Perry and Park, which was on Chene and Warren. There’s a park where we have reunions at there every year now. The Army set up tents and everything right there on that big park. Nobody was supposed to go on that park, but we had one guy, Conley was his name, he went up there and one of the soldiers hit him in the mouth with a rifle, busted, knocked all his teeth out everything. But he was warned not to go up there.

Now, the curfew was six o’clock. You weren’t supposed to be caught on the street after six o’clock. This was the armed forces’ rule. Now the police is trying to enforce, because they got backup with the Army. But it was our time to sell all this stuff that we had stolen. So now we’re running through the alleys with cases of liquor at the after-hours joints trying to sell past six o’clock. Two or three times the Army shot at me because I was on the street past six o’clock running through the alley, me and another guy, he got one end of the case of liquor and I got the other end, and we’re taking it to the after hour joint, selling these liquor, and we sold a few Hi-Fis, and about twenty cases of liquor we sold. But that was when, like I say, we came in contact with the army. And they were there to stop us from being on the street. And like I say, that was my time to sell all the stuff we had stolen. So we made money, and that was our whole objective. Not to hurt anybody, not to set fires because the city was burning already because we had people—blacks were shooting at police at that time, firemen at that time, and I’m watching all this. But it wasn’t what we did, my group did. We was there to make money only, get underwear, get things that we didn’t have. I’ll never forget on the block of St. Aubin, everybody on that block had brand new furniture. They go down to Chene Street, and hit the furniture store, they had couches and chairs. They made a mistake, they took all their furniture, and threw it in the alley, all their old furniture they threw in the alley. So when the National Guard came through, all they had to do was go up that alley, and everybody that had old furniture, they would go in their house find new furniture. They didn’t arrest ’em, these people had to end up going back in the alley, getting their old furniture, because the police made ’em set the new furniture back out. They didn’t arrest them, though, I’ll never forget that. And we were all laughing because they had to give up this new furniture. But the grocery store, the market, there was no food. You couldn’t buy food because they hit every market, every grocery store, every liquor store. There was no food. Plenty of alcohol and liquor you could drink if it was circling the neighborhood. Nobody had food because all of the grocery stores had been hit. For all their meats and food and bread, you couldn’t even buy it. But I want to go back to, after the second day of the riot, I tried to go to work because I still had my job at Chrysler. My job was on 15 and Mound in Warren, Michigan. Little did I know that I wasn’t allowed across 8 Mile Road. They was stopping every Detroiter. Every Detroiter that worked across 8 Mile Road was turned back into Detroit. You weren’t allowed in Warren, Michigan, there’s no going to Sterling Heights where I had to go. I did go, and I told my foreman, and he told me, “Don’t worry about coming to work until after this is over.” So that’s when I really went to loot, cause I got all this free time now, and still got my job. So like I say, when the riot was over with and I was allowed 8 Mile, I never did get caught. I went back to work at Chrysler. This is my story about what happened for those two weeks. This was, like I said, I’d never seen nothing like this before, and never have since. Everything was wide open, you just walk into a store or a supermarket or a clothing store or a jewelry shop and just take what you want, and walk out, nothing there to stop you. The police did not stop you. We heard about the killings at the Algiers Hotel on Woodward. We didn’t go back up to Woodward no more, but this after the National Guard had came. The police got brave, and they shot those guys that was in the—well, actually the thing was, they were pimping. They had white girls in those rooms, and when the police came in and seen all these white girls, they shot the black guys, honest to God truth. They shot ’em and killed ’em. That hotel, the Algiers Hotel, which has been torn down now, was a place where the girls working went in and out and the police could see this, but like I said police did nothing until after the National Guard came. So for a whole week you had at will what you wanted to do, and police didn’t try to stop you. I would say they were scared, I don’t know if they were scared or know they were outnumbered. Because there was thousands of people in the street, cars couldn’t run, I mean people were running down the middle of the street, they stop, go in this store, come out, run down the middle of the street, stop, go in this store. Woodward, you couldn’t drive a car down Woodward. I’m talking about from here all the way back, you couldn’t drive a car down Woodward.

WW: Were you surprised when it went from just looting to arson?

LRJ: Yeah, I was. That’s the racial part. That very first day, that we were notified about the riot, we rode down Warren and over to the Boulevard, and we went down Linwood Street. There was a show on top of the show–what’d you call that thing where they–

WW: Marquee?

LRJ: On top of the marquee was a guy named H. Rap Brown. He was a radical. And was on top of the marquee saying, “Take everything! Burn everything!” He was urging Blacks on like that. But that wasn’t our thing. [Laughter. Coughing.] We didn’t want to hurt nobody. I can’t less, cause I had some white friends that I went to school with, it didn’t bother me. I’m looting with whites. But, H. Rap Brown, which I heard he soon got killed—he didn’t? I thought he did.

WW: He’s still alive.

LRJ: He’s still alive? Well he was urging people at that time to loot. He was standing way up on top of a show, a movie theatre, on the marquee, way up. I made the right turn onto Linwood and like a block after I did was the show, I can’t think of name of the show—

WW: Dexter Theatre.

LRJ: What was it? Was it the Dexter theatre? Something like that. He was urging people to loot and to rob and steal and he was saying things like, “Hurt the white man,” and all this kind of stuff. Well I didn’t go for that, I stopped for about three minutes and listened to what he was saying, then shot down the street, I didn’t even want to hear none of that. All I was interested in was doing what everybody else was doing: looting. Like I say, I was looting alongside whites so I knew nothing racial was about this. But certain areas, they made it a racial thing. Like I say, on Mack, they were crazy on Mack. I never go back on Mack during the riot, that one time I got gas, I never went back on Mack Street, cause it was bullets flying, police was scared to put the fires out, they was ducking, and as the fire guys would go up the ladder they’d be like this, because it was people shooting at the firefighters. Stupid. But that’s what they was doing.

WW: Did this change the way you looked at the city?

LRJ: Yeah, it took a while for the city to get back to normal. Because things were tore up, and burnt up, and I’m still riding my car, so I still got my transportation, and I was going in different parts of 12th Street was just, it was burnt up. Everything was looted, it was tore up. They had a lot of rebuilding to do. Detroit was tore up. A lot of people lost businesses and things were really bad. Like I say, I just went to work then and came back home. I left it alone. It was over and done with.

WW: How did you feel about the National Guard and later the army coming in? You mentioned that it emboldened the Detroit Police Department–

LRJ: Right.

WW: So aside from that, how did you feel about the use of state troops and federal troops?

LRJ: I think it was needed, because it was enough chaos as it was. For a solid week, there were nobody to stop what was going on. I mean it was wide open. I stole as much as I wanted to steal, now I wanna to see this stop because everybody’s going crazy! And I’m hearing on the news about people getting shot and killed, and now I’m getting worried, and I’m saying this needs to stop. So when the National Guard came in, I was actually happy, but, well happy in one hand and a little sad because I still had stuff to sell and they were there to stop me being on the street. But I know this is what this city needed, they needed somebody to enforce the law because it was lawless at the time.

WW: How do you refer to the events of July 1967? Do you see them as a riot? Or do you see them as a rebellion?

LRJ: They say it started a blind pig on 12th Street, which would have made it a rebellion when the police was raiding the blind pigs over there. But I don’t see it as a rebellion, just basically a riot. The people were fed up, especially the poor people, how they were being treated, and they went to taking everything they could. So I would say riot. It was a chance for people to have things they didn’t have, not so much to hurt people as a rebellion, no. No. Or a racial thing, no. So everybody, you know, right now I hear people say, “Man, was you here, do you remember, do you know about the riot, man?” And a lot of people that talk wasn’t even here when that happened. I was here, I lived through it, and I knew it was not a racial thing at all. It was just an opportunity for people to riot. They opened the door for poor people to get things they didn’t have. It wasn’t trying to kill you cause you was white, you was right along beside me, looting!

WW: Did you ever think about moving out of the city after that, or did you?

LRJ: Well I live out of the city now.

WW: Then?

LRJ: Then? No. I stayed here through all the rebuilding.

WW: And was your neighborhood ever threatened by fire?

LRJ: Yeah, we had some fires, not much. Guys would, it was only a few, there were some black businesses. Matter of fact, there was a few Black businesses, and they would paint black on their door, and the people wouldn’t touch their business. Like a small store. Black-owned. And he would put black on his door, and they’d riot, they’d run past this door. Some of them got hit too, for their little groceries and their little beer and wine they were selling, but a small store, neighborhood corner store or something. But, basically, no.

WW: Do you think the city’s still affected by the events of 1967? Do you think we’ve moved past them?

LRJ: I think we went past that. Most of the people that was here then is not even proud of being even alive. Most of my friends that looted with me, there’s only one or two that’s still alive. Two or three that’s in the penitentiary, never did anything with their lives. I went on to, I quit Chrysler after one year. I had a few other odd jobs. Then I went to work for the John Hancock Insurance Company. I worked there for twenty-two years as a financial planner, I sold stocks, bonds, mutual funds, car insurance, homeowner’s. I even met Mr. Wright, Charles H. Wright, I serviced him before he died. I was at his house, he showed me and told me about his dream of opening the Wright. And he had all these black artifacts in his house that he showed me. He was waiting on a loan at the time from the banks to try to open up this place. He was a John Hancock policy holder, and I’m going through the policy service cards when I run across his name, and I went to his house to service his policy.

WW: That’s awesome.

LRJ: Yeah.

WW: How do you see the city today? Are you optimistic?

LRJ: Yeah. They’re doing a lot of building, you can almost go downtown and not know it, not as it used to be. During the ‘60s, early ‘70s, they had White Castles and stuff up and down Woodward, all that stuff’s gone. You got new buildings, new businesses, it’s really changed. Yeah. I’ve been out of Detroit now since June of ’12, but I drove the bus for the next twelve years up and down Woodward, the city of Detroit bus, and I retired from them. So I get a pension from them as well—one from John Hancock, one from the city of Detroit. So I wasn’t always a thug. I was a good guy at heart. But the riot was something you couldn’t pass up, nobody. Even the square guys was looting. It was just opportunity that you had at that time. I wasn’t a thief, because after that was over I never went to jail for anything, I don’t have a criminal record. This was just opportunity. Like I say, race had nothing to do with it. Wasn’t no rebellion. Detroit was a city, they say, that was kind of fed up, there was a lot of people out of work. How I got that job at Chrysler, I was lucky, fresh out of high school, even though I didn’t work long. But they were known then, to work you eighty-nine days and let you go, so that you couldn’t draw unemployment against them, you had to have ninety days. So they called me back, the second time is when the riot broke out.

WW: Thank you so much for sitting down with me, I greatly appreciate it.